The land management plans for the terrestrial areas of the natural parks on the islands of Terceira, Graciosa, Corvo, Flores, Santa Maria, and São Jorge in the Azores, which aim to guarantee a “sustainable use of the territory,” were published today in the Official Journal of the Portuguese Republic.
In the six regional regulatory decrees, the Government of the Azores (PSD/CDS-PP/PPM) emphasizes that these plans have the “objective of responding to the challenges facing the management of the respective protected areas” through the “establishment of regimes for safeguarding resources and natural values.”
The documents define areas of integral, partial, and priority protection, and fix as “management objectives” the preservation of the “species, habitats and ecosystems in a favorable state of conservation,” the protection of the “structural characteristics of the landscape,” and the “safeguarding of biological and geological diversity.”
The land area management plans for the natural parks also aim to “regulate uses and activities in order to prevent types of exploitation or occupation that may constitute a threat to sustainability,” ensure the monitoring of the “spaces of public access and define limits and constraints,” and “contribute to sustainable socio-economic development, supporting livelihoods and economic activities in harmony with nature.”
In the plans, the Regional Government highlights that the “introduction of invasive exotic species is one of the main causes of biodiversity loss on a global scale,” with negative environmental, economic and social impacts.
“Islands ecosystems are particularly vulnerable to biological invasions, with the introduction of invasive exotic species having been responsible for the extinction of a large number of natural species, and in the Azores archipelago the pressure of invasive species is today the dominant cause of biodiversity loss, which obliges a progressively more effective combat,” argues the executive.
The Azores Protected Areas Network comprises 124 protected areas across the nine island natural parks, representing 56,066 hectares of terrestrial area, about a quarter of the archipelago’s territory, according to the Regional Government.
