REFORESTATION OF LOCAL PRIVATE LANDS

An ArBOR project funded out of donations to the association.

This winter we are adding species and age diversity to slopes initially replanted with a limited range of broadleaved trees after the fires of 2017. These areas have since also repopulated with regenerating self-seeded maritime pine (Pinus pinaster, which was a monoculture prior to the fires). We allow the pines to act as a nursery species for the native trees and the landowners will selectively harvest them for firewood as time progresses and the native trees mature.

It’s been gratifying to see a reasonable survival rate in the earlier 2018 plantings, as well as a lot of smaller seedlings appearing from widespread seed-sowing the following year. The work done creating check dams with burnt timber on the slopes in the wake of the fires to hold soil and add decaying organic matter has also proved invaluable to the speed and quality of regeneration.

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

Planting days are on Sunday mornings during December. (See the events section on the home page and our social media.) 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 and developed in consultation with the Junta de Freguesia of Benfeita.

While the disastrous fires of October 2017, which decimated this entire area, were exceptional, it was plain to those of us living here at the time how massively underresourced 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, have now 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 is now substantially complete. Various short wave radio communication systems are currently being range tested before adding these to the teams’ resources.

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

TREE NURSERY

An ArBOR project funded out of donations to the association.

We are establishing ArBOR’s own tree nursery of native species grown from local seed to use in our reforestation work in the area. Not only does this allow us to raise seedlings optimally adapted to our local conditions, but it gives us the ability to create far more replanting capacity from available resources.