Month: May 2022

The Loulé Municipality’s team, which integrates the REMAS project (INTERREG SUDOE programme), together with the partner Higher Institute of Agronomy (University of Lisbon), promoted an online workshop aimed at national and regional entities to reflect on the integration of results of this project in the most relevant legal instruments in force.

REMAS is a project that aims to determine the risk of greenhouse gas emissions from forest fires, propose measures to minimize these emissions and improve the capacity to recover carbon stocks in burned areas. It is intended that these matters may have a legal framework in the future, namely the results acquired from the pilot areas that are being studied and where different forms of intervention after the fires have been tested: Serra do Caldeirão, in Portugal, the Aquitaine region in France, Chequilla (Guadalajara) and Chelva-Andilla (Valencia), both in Spain.

Thus, some of the relevant regulations and plans for the REMAS project were under analysis and which will soon integrate the results of this initiative financed by European funds. Environment, Spatial Planning, Climate Change and Defence of the Forest against Fires are the topics on which the instruments presented are inscribed, given their relevance to the central issue of REMAS, in particular in the field of mitigation of greenhouse gases in forest fires. The directive of the European Parliament and of the Council on ambient air quality and cleaner air in Europe, the resolution of the Council of Ministers that created the National System of Inventory of Emissions by Sources and Removal of Atmospheric Pollutants, the Report of the State of the Environment 2020/2021, as well as the National Emissions Inventory (estimate of greenhouse gas emissions caused by forest fires) were matters discussed in this session, in the field of Environment.

On the other hand, in terms of Spatial Planning, the National Programme for Spatial Planning Policy, Recovery and Resilience Plan and Integrated Landscape Recovery Management Plans were discussed at this workshop.

Also the issues related to Climate Change essential for this project, as well as the planning instruments associated with them, deserved the attention not only of the moderators, but of those who attended the workshop. This is the case of the Loulé Municipal Climate Action Plan, the first to be completed in our country, a document that guides political action and the prioritization of public investment in the Municipality of Loulé in the next decade. Among the regulations and plans, the Intermunicipal Plan for Adaptation to Climate Change in the Algarve, the Roadmap for Carbon Neutrality 2050 and the National Energy and Climate Plan 2030 were also discussed.

Finally, the regulations and plans were under analysis within the scope of the Forest and the Defence of the Forest against Fires, such as the Independent Technical Observatory – technical study ‘Fire Risk Reduction through the Use of Woody Biomass for Energy’, the National Management Plan of Rural Fires (PNGIFR) and the National Action Programme of the PNGIFR or the Regional Plan for Forest Management (PROF) – Algarve.

At the end of the workshop, a SWOT analysis was carried out on the whole of these instruments, identifying the strengths and weaknesses in terms of their approach to forest fire risk and mitigation of greenhouse gas emissions (by forest fires), considering the interaction between climate, forest and fire. In this same perspective, opportunities for improvement/review of these instruments and external threats to this end were also addressed.

It should be remembered that SUDOE-REMAS is a project led by the Association of Forest Municipalities of the Valencian Community (AMUFOR), and that in addition to the Loulé Municipality, it has as partners the Polytechnic University of Valencia, the University of Valencia, the Provincial Council of Valencia, the National Institute for Agricultural and Food Research and Technology – CSIC National Centre, the Higher Institute of Agronomy, the Higher School of Agricultural Sciences in Bordeaux and associated partners from different regions.

CML/GAP /RP

During the month of November, AMUFOR technical staff travelled around the province of Castellón to give training workshops to the brigades of the EMERGE programme. A total of 383 brigade members from 79 municipalities attended the workshops.

The three-week workshops highlighted the need to set up risk prevention brigades, forest fires being the main risk in the rural areas of the province of Castellón, as the work they carry out helps to reduce the fuel load on the Castellón forests, thus reducing the possibility of a forest fire starting and, if it does occur, making it much less virulent, allowing the fire-fighting forces to act more efficiently and effectively on a possible fire outbreak.

On the other hand, the hiring of people living in these municipalities allows the population to settle, being predominantly from rural areas, where the risk of depopulation is high. The role played by the brigades in the territory is very important and their training is therefore essential.

In the same way, understanding that the work they implement on a daily basis has positive consequences for the environment and that their role in risk prevention helps to combat the negative effects of climate change (reducing CO2 emissions from forest fires, among others) is of great importance for the personal motivation of each member of the brigade as well as for their personal and professional development.

EMERGE 2021 brigades

The consolidation of EMERGE brigades for the year 2021 comes from a programme of subsidies of Social Initiative, aimed at the hiring of unemployed people by local corporations of the Comuntiat Valenciana, to implement actions provided for in emergency plans or procedures in the field of forestry. In addition, the resolution establishes, according to the Report-proposal of the Valencian Agency for Security and Emergency Response of 16 November 2020, that the geographical scope of the call is determined by a combination of the following factors: the risk of depopulation and the risk of forest fires and operational priority in fire extinction.

In this sense, the actions envisaged for the brigades are based on carrying out actions whose main objective is to mitigate or reduce a risk contemplated in an emergency plan for the Comunitat Valenciana as a whole or at a local level, and especially the reduction of the population risks derived from forest fires, by means of actions that favour the intervention of the extinguishing means.

The workshop programme was divided into two parts. On the one hand, the brigade members were trained in the identification and characterisation of tree and shrub species in their respective areas of action. On the other hand, the dissemination of information on the protection of forest areas and their role in the management of the risk of CO2 emissions associated with forest fires in the framework of the fight against climate change, all under the umbrella of the European Interreg Sudoe REMAS project.

It was also shown how the preservation of these protected areas and the forest fire prevention tasks carried out daily by the EMERGE brigades contribute to reducing the risk of CO2 emissions into the atmosphere, which maintains the carbon stored in the plant structures and thus makes it possible to actively combat climate change.

The presentations were supported by audiovisual material, under different videos on climate change, protected natural areas, forest fires and a video explaining the Interreg Sudoe REMAS project. REMAS, among other actions, quantifies CO2 emissions to the atmosphere due to forest fires in 4 regions of Southwest Europe, 2 in Spain, one in France and one in Portugal.

In addition, both before and during the workshops, there was close collaboration with all the actors involved in them, carrying out quality joint work and materialising in the satisfaction of both the organisers of the workshops (AMUFOR, Castellón Provincial Council, Servef-LABORA, Regional Ministry of Sustainable Economy and the participating town councils) and the members of the brigades.