REFORESTATION OF LOCAL PRIVATE LANDS

An ArBOR project funded out of donations to the association.

Last winter (2024-25) we organised several planting days to add species and age diversity to slopes initially replanted with a limited range of broadleaved trees after the fires of 2017. It was especially heartwrenching to see these same slopes once again decimated by the enormous Piódão fire this last August of 2025. At this point, it remains to be seen how many, if any, survive. Sometimes it seems we’re fighting a losing battle … but yet there’s a sense the natural life energies of these valleys will prevail and return with vigour. So we too persevere.

This winter our replanting activities have been limited to sowing acorns on burnt land and a small area of seedling planting to replace a eucalyptus plantation. Many of the acorns have been dug up by the wild boar, whose numbers have exploded here in recent years, but they won’t find them all.

We plant birch (Betula celtiberica), oak (Quercus robur), cork oak (Quercus suber), holm oak (Quercus rotundifolia) and Spanish oak (Quercus pyrenaica), ash (Fraxinus angustifolia), stone/umbrella pine (Pinus pinea), strawberry tree (Arbutus unedo), mock privet (Phillyrea angustifolia), mastic tree (Pistacia lentiscus) and more.

Planting days are organised on weekend mornings during December and January. (See the events section on the home page and our social media for any that are planned.) Come and join us! Let’s bring native forests back to these hills again!

LOCAL VOLUNTEER FIRE FIRST RESPONSE

A project financed by the Benfeita Fire Fund, the local community and donations to ArBOR. Developed in consultation with the Junta de Freguesia of Benfeita.

The disastrous fires of October 2017, which decimated this entire area, were seen at the time as exceptional. However it was plain to those of us living here then how massively under-resourced we were in this locality to mount any kind of response.

The junta has a small truck with a tank, pump and hoses to respond to local outbreaks in advance of the nearest bombeiros (Coja, 8km) arriving, but this is a large area of difficult terrain. In any significant fire, priority is given to defending larger population centres. In 2017 we were on our own. 4×4 trucks owned by members of the foreign community were used to carry 1000-litre IBC tanks to take water to the junta team, but with only a single pump at the river beach in Benfeita and no additional hoses, the effort was painfully slow and inefficient, 

As a result, money was put aside by the Benfeita Fire Fund from funds raised in the wake of the disaster for improving local fire defences. This was transferred to ArBOR who, in consultation with the local junta, equipped 3 volunteer 4×4 trucks with tanks, pumps, hoses and crews, and established a network of water resources throughout the valleys to improve speed and capacity in response.

The equipping of the trucks and a network of short-wave radio communication was completed in time to face fire again in 2025. This time we had a far better idea of what we were doing and the additional capacity our teams and our extensive network of lookouts gave to the local fire response proved invaluable. We have now raised sufficient funds to equip a 4th vehicle.

The trucks act as backup to the junta’s first response team and operate within the area of the Junta de Freguesia of Benfeita.

WIND FARM INFORMATION CAMPAIGN

An ArBOR project in association with local communities and funded out of donations to the association.

This is a project developed in response to rapidly evolving circumstances. In common with the wilder areas throughout the length and breadth of Europe, we are seeing large-scale corporate incursion for the installation of solar and wind farms. Proposals for 125m 7-10MW wind turbines encompass every ridge surrounding these valleys.

Initially, like many taking governmental promises of ‘clean energy’ at face value, we assumed this was “a good thing” with little to be concerned about. But regardless, due diligence was called for. After conversations with residents in already-impacted communities, visits to installations of these new megaturbines, close inspection of the contracts offered to the local baldios commissions and thorough investigation of the available science on the impact of both electromagnetic and low frequency vibrations on life of all kinds, we realised such installations pose enormous and potentially unacceptable threats to environmental and human health for anything living in their vicinity. Not to mention to the security and viability of local ownership of common lands. They are far from being a benign source of power. We decided, as an association, to oppose such developments.

During 2025 we embarked on a campaign to inform local communities of what we had learned and to inject more balance into the criteria on which people would base personal decisions to vote for or against such developments in their local baldios. We also responded to public consultation invitations and provided some coaching to local residents on acceptable forms of submission to such processes.

As of this writing (February 2026), consultation processes and negotiations are still ongoing and no final decisions have been made.