Twelve municipalities affected by the bad weather and responsible for Integrated Landscape Management Operations (OIGP) have an approved application and have already received 18.5 million euros, revealed today by the Secretariat of State for Forests.
In information sent to the Lusa agency, which reports data as of July 17, the Secretariat of State led by Rui Ladeira explained that the municipalities (OIGP managing entities) of Ourém, Batalha, Leiria, Miranda do Corvo, Vila de Rei, Góis, Marinha Grande, Pedrógão Grande, Nazaré, Vila Velha de Ródão, Alcobaça and Alvaiázere “already have approved applications, acceptance agreement signed, and advance payment made.”
“This corresponds to an eligible investment of 26,532,029.97 euros, with 18,572,420.98 euros already transferred,” he stated, explaining that the municipalities of Castelo Branco, Porto de Mós and Ferreira do Zêzere “have approved applications and are in the contracting phase.”
In this case, “this corresponds to an eligible investment of 1,845,940.59 euros, with an advance of 1,292,158.41 euros.”
Another 11 municipalities have applications in the approval phase: Lousã, Ansião, Tomar, Proença-a-Nova, Sertã, Soure, Oleiros, Mação, Pombal, Figueira dos Vinhos and Figueira da Foz, with “an eligible investment of 12,594,312 euros with an advance payment of 8,816,018.40 euros.”
“The OIGP 2.0 program mobilizes 41 million euros from the PRR [Recovery and Resilience Plan] for the 26 eligible municipalities, with the respective OIGPs already established, corresponding to an eligible investment determined at 40,972,820.56 euros, which corresponds to an advance payment of 70%, in the amount of 28,680,597.79 euros,” he clarified.
The Secretariat of State anticipated “the completion of all advances, close to 29 million euros, in the short term,” considering that this is “an unprecedented response in situations of this nature.”
Asked about when they expect the cleanup work on the land affected by the bad weather to be completed, the ministry noted that “the works are carried out on the ground continuously and at a marked pace, with the necessary precautions and in accordance with the level of rural fire danger.”
Since the creation of the Integrated Command for Prevention and Operations (CIPO), based at the Leiria Fire Department, “19,768 kilometers of forest road network in the affected regions have already been cleared,” Thursday’s data, “fulfilling the objective of keeping forest paths unobstructed and access to rural properties usable in fighting rural fires.”
“With regard to the percentage of the volume of timbered material extracted, priority was given to the zones defined by CIPO, focusing on the urban-forest interface, ensuring, first and foremost, the protection of people and property,” he added, noting that, given the exceptional scale of the damage caused by the Kristin depression on January 28, any forecast of completion is still premature.
The CIPO, presented in April, has as its goal the removal of the fuel material accumulated by the storms, the cleaning of critical areas, the reopening of paths and the improvement of accesses, to reduce the risk of rural fires.
The CIPO includes, as an interministerial structure, the National Emergency and Civil Protection Authority, the Institute for Nature Conservation and Forests (ICNF), the Integrated Rural Fire Management Agency, the National Republican Guard, the Portuguese League of Firefighters and the General Staff of the Armed Forces.
To the question of whether there is an idea of how many property owners exist in the 26 OIGPs, the Secretariat of State for Forests noted that “this is a structural problem with decades, which links the fragmentation of ownership to the owners’ lack of knowledge of their holdings.”
“That is why the Government has been implementing and accelerating concrete measures to overcome this constraint, such as BUPI (Unified Property Desk), which is allowing greater precision and speed in identifying the owners of rural property across the national territory,” he stated, stressing that “a parcel may have several owners, just as one owner may hold several parcels.”
In this regard, the ministry disclosed that, “only within the Kristin storm response, 15,097 communications from property owners were registered on the ICNF’s PSE-Florestas platform [Platform for Emergency Support in Forest Territories], declaring the intention to undertake the own execution of forest management operations.”
