burning their bridges
Posted: Wed Aug 24, 2005 10:34 pm
this from the algarve observer........will it soon be time to leave the algarve??????
wednesday, August 24, 2005
Socio-economic and environmental effects of the fires
The consequences beyond the ash
8/24/2005 9:08:00 AM
The fires which are linked to the droughts and the lack of water resources could lead the country into an unprecedented crisis. According to Nuno dos Santos Loureiro, a specialist in climatology and hydrology at the University of the Algarve, it is a situation that could be alleviated by changing the relationship between the environment, the economy and the people.
The fires that have devastated the country have effects that go beyond the ash. The land has been burnt up, the countryside destroyed and the value of the environment drops year by year.
Up to 14th August, the burnt area had reached a total of 115,000 hectares, and since then the worst fires this year took hold, like the ones in Pampilhosa da Serra, Vila Real and Coimbra. The figures have not yet been calculated but will easily exceed the 129,539 hectares which were burnt in 2004, according to the General Directorate of Forestry Resources. 2003 was the worst year, with some 425,000 hectares consumed by flames.
Nuno Loureiro dos Santos thinks that this is a difficult year in terms of fires but that the dramatic reactions are caused by the shocking images that appear incessantly on all news programmes. He said that the only reason that Portugal doesn’t go down any further was that it has already reached rock bottom.
The specialist said that the environmental consequences are of little relevance when compared with the socio-economic consequences. The co-occurrence of drought and fires has almost fatal results for the soil, which is left with reduced capacity for storing water, is less fertile and thus has lower potential.
The specialist in climatology and hydrology explained that the vegetation might grow, but the capacity for creation of wealth on the land is lost, and might only recover in 10, 20 or 30 years.
He concluded that, in addition to this, desertification in the rural areas is intensifying and Portugal, whose agriculture and industry are already fragile and whose services are not the most efficient, is returning to a kind of Middle Age society with a specific type of population on the coast, and a desert in the interior.
He said that all areas are affected because poverty is a vicious circle and we are heading in that direction, adding: “Who is going to want to be a tourist, or hunt or have plantations in an inland region that is completely burnt?
Structural prevention and social responsibility
Nuno dos Santos Loureiro says that Portugal is doing nothing concrete to solve these problems and that the structural disadjustment of the whole system means that these tragedies are repeated year after year.
Nuno dos Santos Loureiro began by expressing regret at the attitude of people who attack fire-fighters and take their chairs to the roadside to watch a show called “Fire”. He added that more than 90% of the forest is privately owned and that now is the time to assume responsibility, not only when there are benefits.
One of the main reasons for there having been so many fires devastating the country in recent years, is the change in use of the land that has been seen over the past few decades. The lecturer explained that the multiple use of the forest, with agriculture and livestock, protected the land: later an imbalance was created that was never resolved.
The specialist warned that, faced with the difficulty of resolving this imbalance, the people in power continue to deceive people, and even themselves, and he put forward a number of measures that would alter this scenario:
making it very clear to people that the responsibility for preventing and fighting fire belongs to everyone, not just to others; find out who the owners of forest land are who want to exploit the land, and make them responsible for this; the government’s responsibility is to implement the first two measures and to realise that solutions also imply the inclusion of the necessary expenses for strategy and prevention in budgets.
wednesday, August 24, 2005
Socio-economic and environmental effects of the fires
The consequences beyond the ash
8/24/2005 9:08:00 AM
The fires which are linked to the droughts and the lack of water resources could lead the country into an unprecedented crisis. According to Nuno dos Santos Loureiro, a specialist in climatology and hydrology at the University of the Algarve, it is a situation that could be alleviated by changing the relationship between the environment, the economy and the people.
The fires that have devastated the country have effects that go beyond the ash. The land has been burnt up, the countryside destroyed and the value of the environment drops year by year.
Up to 14th August, the burnt area had reached a total of 115,000 hectares, and since then the worst fires this year took hold, like the ones in Pampilhosa da Serra, Vila Real and Coimbra. The figures have not yet been calculated but will easily exceed the 129,539 hectares which were burnt in 2004, according to the General Directorate of Forestry Resources. 2003 was the worst year, with some 425,000 hectares consumed by flames.
Nuno Loureiro dos Santos thinks that this is a difficult year in terms of fires but that the dramatic reactions are caused by the shocking images that appear incessantly on all news programmes. He said that the only reason that Portugal doesn’t go down any further was that it has already reached rock bottom.
The specialist said that the environmental consequences are of little relevance when compared with the socio-economic consequences. The co-occurrence of drought and fires has almost fatal results for the soil, which is left with reduced capacity for storing water, is less fertile and thus has lower potential.
The specialist in climatology and hydrology explained that the vegetation might grow, but the capacity for creation of wealth on the land is lost, and might only recover in 10, 20 or 30 years.
He concluded that, in addition to this, desertification in the rural areas is intensifying and Portugal, whose agriculture and industry are already fragile and whose services are not the most efficient, is returning to a kind of Middle Age society with a specific type of population on the coast, and a desert in the interior.
He said that all areas are affected because poverty is a vicious circle and we are heading in that direction, adding: “Who is going to want to be a tourist, or hunt or have plantations in an inland region that is completely burnt?
Structural prevention and social responsibility
Nuno dos Santos Loureiro says that Portugal is doing nothing concrete to solve these problems and that the structural disadjustment of the whole system means that these tragedies are repeated year after year.
Nuno dos Santos Loureiro began by expressing regret at the attitude of people who attack fire-fighters and take their chairs to the roadside to watch a show called “Fire”. He added that more than 90% of the forest is privately owned and that now is the time to assume responsibility, not only when there are benefits.
One of the main reasons for there having been so many fires devastating the country in recent years, is the change in use of the land that has been seen over the past few decades. The lecturer explained that the multiple use of the forest, with agriculture and livestock, protected the land: later an imbalance was created that was never resolved.
The specialist warned that, faced with the difficulty of resolving this imbalance, the people in power continue to deceive people, and even themselves, and he put forward a number of measures that would alter this scenario:
making it very clear to people that the responsibility for preventing and fighting fire belongs to everyone, not just to others; find out who the owners of forest land are who want to exploit the land, and make them responsible for this; the government’s responsibility is to implement the first two measures and to realise that solutions also imply the inclusion of the necessary expenses for strategy and prevention in budgets.
