The E-Redes company began today to be tried at the Arouca Court, in the Aveiro district, in a case related to the illegal felling of cork oaks, a protected species in Portugal.
In addition to the EDP group company, which operates the electricity distribution network on mainland Portugal under a concession regime, the case includes as defendants the company that was awarded the tree-cutting contract and its legal representative.
The defendants are charged with a crime of damage to nature, the penalty for which is less than five years’ imprisonment.
The legal representative of E-Redes chose not to testify at the first session of the trial.
The manager of the company contracted to undertake the felling of the cork oaks agreed to speak.
The defendant admitted carrying out the felling of the trees, but said there were about 30 to 40 and that he was simply following E-Redes’s orders.
The businessman further explained that the trees were endangering the public electricity distribution network.
The case concerns the illegal felling of more than fifty cork oaks, among other trees, on private land located at Quinta das Regadas, in Arouca, in January 2023.
The accusation states that E-Redes ordered the cutting of 63 cork oaks, which were located underneath a power transmission and distribution network, even though it only had authorization from the Institute for Nature Conservation and Forests (ICNF) for the cutting of eight adult cork oaks.
The Public Prosecutor’s Office opened an inquiry against E-Redes, the company awarded the tree-cutting and its legal representative, but ordered the case to be archived, arguing that there was sufficient evidence that the crime of damage to nature had not occurred.
However, the landowner requested the opening of instruction, which ended with the pronouncement order of the defendants for the cooperation in the crime of damage to nature.
Unconvinced by the decision, E-Redes appealed to the Porto Court of Appeal, which confirmed the decision of the Criminal Instruction Court of Santa Maria da Feira.
The pronouncement order states that the defendants felled, in addition to other species of trees, the 63 cork oaks on the land in question without the necessary legal authorization issued by ICNF for the purpose, at least for 55 of them, despite being aware that such conduct was prohibited and punished by law and having the intent to do so.
The document also notes the lack of cooperation by the company, which throughout the process hindered the investigation, either by not responding to the information requested, or by invoking successive “excuses” for not presenting the authorizations, thereby managing to avoid its timely induction as a defendant.
