“Until March 2023, we will be on the ground helping the landowners in this region, by planting over 75,000 indigenous trees,” said João Dias Coelho, president of the Group for Spatial Planning and Environment Studies (GEOTA), which coordinates the project Renature Monchique.

The leader of the non-governmental organisation, who was speaking at a press conference held in Faro, revealed that, in the fourth year of action of the reforestation project, cork oaks, chestnut trees, strawberry trees, cerquinhos oaks, ash and alders will be replanted.

“There will also be a reinforcement and a major investment in the planting of the Monchique oak, a tree emblematic in the region and critically endangered”, he added.

“The results are very positive. As we know, what burned in the Serra de Monchique is brutal, we are talking about 28 thousand hectares”, underlined João Dias Coelho, praising the “unprecedented work of environmental restoration and protection of natural ecosystems” already carried out.

The “important” action of GEOTA, he continued, has been through “direct contact with farmers and landowners”, to make them understand “the danger of focusing on fast-growing species that are not native to the region – because fires are the result of that.”