The Countryside Minister commits to securing resources to finance a forest restoration plan for the burnt-out forests.
On Wednesday 13 December the Counsellor for Rural Affairs, accompanied by the Director General of Forest Planning and Production, the Territorial Head for Pontevedra and the Provincial Heads of Forests and Forest Fires, visited the Ponteareas headquarters of the Galician Forestry Association, where they held a meeting with the association's directors, technicians and the presidents of its communities and mountain consortia.
At the meeting, the assessment of the damage and losses caused to the AFG members' forests affected by the October fires was presented, amounting to €18,938,078, while the restoration of what would be immature stands would amount to €10,905,506. In this regard, the Secretary of Rural Affairs committed to the representatives of the Galician Forestry Association to provide resources to finance and develop a forest restoration plan for the burnt-out forests.
During the meeting, the proposals set out in the framework of the forestry sector agreement on burnt forests, which the collective of Galician forestry sector organisations recently submitted to the Ministry, were presented. Emphasis was placed on the urgency of taking exceptional measures for the felling and removal of burnt timber in the area demarcated by the nematode, particularly with regard to the large volume of sawtimber involved. The Forestry Administration announced that it is negotiating with the Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries, Food and the Environment exceptional measures to allow the removal of logs to authorised sawmills outside the Demarcated Zone until 31 March 2018, a measure that will in fact facilitate the removal of the large volume of symptomatic pine timber from the demarcated zone.
The representatives of the Galician Forestry Association, After setting out the immediate needs in the wake of the recent fires, they presented the Minister with measures necessary to revitalise Galicia's forests and rural areas, including a new formulation of public aid for forests, a new framework for relations between forest district officials and forest owners and communities, and the urgent need to simplify forestry and environmental regulations to make them compatible with forestry activities.
The Galician Forestry Association thanked the Secretary of State and her team for reaching out to forest owners to listen to them and see first-hand the difficulties and the important work of forest management carried out by many community members, with the support of the Galician Forestry Association's technical team, in order to optimise the management of community woodlands and enhance their value.
To conclude the day, the Councillor travelled to the communal woodland of Couso and other nearby communal woodlands, where she was able to see for herself the impact of the disaster and the need to draw up and implement a restoration plan for the tree cover, incorporating more rigorous measures to prevent and combat fires and to protect the surrounding rural settlements.
The Councillor will meet again with those affected in three months to analyse the results and the progress of the proposals put forward.
