Lisbon, Aug. 4, 2025 (Lusa) - The forest fires ravaging Portugal once again justify the calling of a protest in September, across the Iberian Peninsula, organised by a citizens' network protesting against the actions of the pulp and fossil fuel industries.

In a statement released on Monday, one of the protest organisers, climate change researcher João Camargo, justified the repetition of the event by Floresta do Futuro (Forest of the Future) with what is already “another year of devastating forest fires” and announced a mobilisation process involving national organisations and, in Galicia, in Spain, where the Portuguese company Altri “wants to impose the construction of a new pulp mill in Galicia, against the will of the local population”.

“To fight for the lives of people living in rural areas, but not only them, a growing popular mobilisation is needed to stop the catastrophic plans that result from the combination of the interests of the fossil fuel and pulp industries, supported by the Iberian governments over the last few decades,” the statement argues.

Listing high temperatures, drought and eucalyptus monoculture as factors that are turning the interior of the country "into a matchbox", the statement points the finger at the new interior minister, Maria Lúcia Amaral, and her recent statements on last week's fires, in which she said it was necessary to understand their root causes.

“The minister’s statements are at best naive and at worst, and more likely, a cover-up by those who have created the conditions for fires to reach the catastrophic dimensions of the last two decades. The arsonists of the pulp and oil industries continue to create the conditions for the rural world to become an abandoned and lethal desert,” the statement said.

"The fires are the result of the surrender of the Portuguese rural world to the pulp industry, which has transformed a million hectares into eucalyptus plantations, a large part of which are monoculture, making Portugal the country with the largest area of eucalyptus in the world. This is not state inaction, but a project that cuts across government policy, so often rewarded with revolving doors to executive positions in industry," they accuse.

In Portugal, environmentalists criticise the activities of companies such as Galp and EDP, which contribute to global warming, making heat waves more frequent and lethal, recalling the hundreds of excess deaths in the last week in the country, but above all Altri and Navigator, cellulose companies "which are among the most polluting companies in the country" and responsible for vast expanses of eucalyptus plantations in the territory.

“Despite the repeated promise that they manage the areas from which they obtain wood well, in recent days many of these cellulose plantations in Aveiro, Arouca and Santarém have burned down,” the statement reads.

The organisation recalls that in 2024 the protest brought together hundreds of people in dozens of villages and towns across the country.

IMA/AYLS // AYLS

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