Environment minister Maria de Graça Carvalho has today “assured the government is not dismantling, or weakening, the powers of the Institute for Nature Conservation and Forests”, writes Lusa, in the kind of story that sets alarm bells ringing.
What could be the need for such assurance, if not indications that this is precisely what the government is planning?
Público was the newspaper that first mooted concerns of conservationists and NGOs in October last year.
At the time, various sources were extremely concerned with what they understood was happening. Watering down ICNF powers – so that ‘government decisions’ on activities like mining/ solar panel spread could move forwards much more easily would simply be ‘unthinkable’, said environment association ZERO.
But that is what looks like may well be happening.
As a source told Público last year: “If the ICNF is dismantled and its powers dispersed, this is seen as a triumph for economic pressures to push forward controversial projects with major problems in terms of their impact on the natural and human environment, such as lithium mines.
“Lithium in Montalegre has not yet gone ahead, for example, because there is a pack of Iberian wolves there…”
The fear was / still is that the dismantling of the ICNF “will occur surreptitiously, only being announced once it is a fait accompli, as happened with the extinction of the Foundation for Science and Technology,” said the source.
Fast forward to today, and environment minister Maria da Graça Carvalho has said that it is ‘necessary to discuss how to resolve some problems that have been detected and that even greater interconnection with the Portuguese Environment Agency will be needed‘.
The minister was heard by the Parliamentary Committee on Environment and Energy, following a request from Iniciativa Liberal, LIVRE and PAN (People-Animals-Nature) regarding the alleged merger of the Environment Agency (APA) with the the Institute for Nature Conservation and Forests (the ICNF).
“I want to make it clear right away” that the ICNF “is a pillar of public policies on the environment and biodiversity, under the jurisdiction of the Ministry for the Environment and Energy,” the minister began.
She also mentioned the ICNF’s 113 forest firefighters, with another 61 currently being recruited, concluding that what the government is doing is creating conditions for the ICNF to perform its mission ‘even better’.
Transfers from the Environmental Fund to the ICNF rose from €47 million in 2024 to €73 million in 2025, remaining at the same level this year, the minister added.
The priority is to ‘improve the way protected areas are managed’ – “strengthening management in the field“, boosting relations with local communities and safeguarding biodiversity. and the environment, she said.
“We plan to strengthen the management framework for protected areas by creating conditions for the permanent presence of directors and multidisciplinary teams on the ground, ensuring closer management,” Ms Carvalho continued, admitting a legislative proposal to “move forward in this area” and to have an ICNF that is “better able to act and enhance protected areas“.
Says Lusa: the minister reminded MPs of the reforms in the area of energy, creating an energy agency, and in the area of climate, creating a climate agency, with the area of environmental licensing now being analysed.
Maria da Graça Carvalho reaffirmed as one of the concerns regarding the ICNF the fact that there is no hierarchy between national management and regional management, which means that there may be “different policies, for example in environmental assessment, from region to region”.
“I would like to have another solution” for greater alignment between national policies, the ICNF management and the regional management. Without pointing to specific cases, the minister noted that there are regions where a large number of projects are rejected (something the government presumably is not delighted about).
Ms Carvalho also spoke of the role of the Regional Coordination and Development Commissions (CCDR), which now have a link to the Environment, adding: “it is this triangle, more than mergers or reorganisations, that we need to clarify”.
These issues, she said, are being discussed with the ICNF, and other examples of European systems for park management are being looked at, as well as studying how a reform would be “better for the country and for the people”.
Whether these assuaging words convince those whose concerns are already raised is what we wait to hear.
Sources: LUSA/ Público
