Pombal, Leiria, Portugal, March 12, 2026 (Lusa) - Portugal's Minister of Agriculture and Fisheries has announced a €40 million programme for forest owners affected by Storm Kristin to remove fallen trees and clear the land.
During a visit on Wednesday to the parish of Guia, in the district of Pombal, in the centre region, one of the areas most affected by the storm on 28 January, José Manuel Fernandes set a target of clearing the "critical areas", estimated at 30,000 hectares, by the end of the year.
"It will be impossible to remove all the fallen trees, perhaps during this year, but in critical areas we want this to happen and a lot of work is being done," he told journalists.
The minister explained that the ministry is awaiting the publication of legislation to be able to support landowners with €40 million from the Recovery and Resilience Plan (PRR) and the establishment of rapid Integrated Landscape Management Operations, "in a task that is being carried out by everyone".
Several entities and ministries are involved "in this goal of accelerating as much as possible, not only to recover quickly, but also to prevent new tragedies, namely fires," he said.
The minister, who visited a forest area where teams from the Institute for Nature Conservation and Forests (ICNF) are working to clear forest roads, wants the government programme to support landowners in removing timber of economic value and then clearing the land "so as not to leave combustible material" through an incentive of €1,000 per hectare.
José Manuel Fernandes assured that by the beginning of summer, the forest roads used by firefighting services must be cleared and highlighted the government's "tremendous effort" to provide equipment to intermunicipal communities, with the delivery of 18 bulldozers.
"My appeal is that all existing machines be used for this purpose," said the minister, noting that only one of these machines is currently in operation.
In cases where owners do not remove combustible material, the government has put forward a legislative amendment that allows state entities to take action to prevent fires.
According to the Minister of Agriculture and Fisheries, 250 members of ICNF forestry teams work daily in the Central region to clear forest roads, although in the days following the storm there were 900 operatives on the ground.
According to the ICNF's assessment, the most severely affected districts were Pombal, Leiria, Marinha Grande and Batalha, in the Leiria region.
In the district of Pombal alone, the passage of storm Kristin left 2,400 kilometres of roads and forest tracks blocked, with around 500 kilometres already cleared, according to the mayor, Pedro Pimpão.
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Lusa
