Eucalyptus: Portugal’s sustainability dilemma

Portuguese eucalyptus forests are helping to replace plastics, but as the country’s climate warms up, this highly flammable tree is a growing threat to people and biodiversity.

Portugal is the European country most affected by fires over the last decade. Between 2009 and 2021, an average area of more than 80,000 hectares was burnt each year.

The country on the Iberian Peninsula experienced an annus horribilis in 2017, with the deaths of 66 people caught up in fires in the central municipality of Pedrógão Grande.

“Using exotic fire-prone trees (like eucalyptus) for afforestation in tree-planting schemes under a heating and drying climate has the potential to literally backfire, releasing carbon while also risking local tragedy and ecological damage,”  Yadvinder Singh Malhi, a professor of ecosystem science at the University of Oxford, told the Guardian.

Eucalyptus trees, originally from Australia, account for a quarter of Portugal’s total forest area and cover around 10% of the country, according to the latest national forest inventory. Eucalyptus pulp is used to produce toilet paper, paper rolls, and alternatives to plastic throughout Europe.

A grassroots drive to ‘de-eucalyptise’ Portugal

Summer 2023 saw citizens protest against eucalyptus and calls for the 700,000 hectares of abandoned eucalyptus growth to be cleared.

Protest steering committee member Beatriz Xavier said that citizens wanted to see more diverse and climate resilient forests, which also allow locals to earn a living.

Alternative tree species exist but have different commercial applications.

In the Algarve, Porgutal’s souternmost region, the Renature Monchique programme is mostly replanting fire-affected areas with with cork oak (Portugal accounts for 54% of world cork production) and the strawberry tree, whose fruit is used to produce a liqueur, aguardente medronheira.

These native trees do not have the same water consumption needs as eucalyptus and are more fire resistant, plus their products can be harvested without cutting down the trees.

Industry: “We need to have more eucalyptus”

The Navigator paper company is Portugal’s third-largest exporter and the biggest generator of national added value, accounting for around 1% of Portugal’s GDP. According to the company, there is currently a lack of forest raw materials such as eucalyptus and pine.

António Redondo, CEO of Navigator, said that “to remain sustainable, we need to have more eucalyptus forests” as he addressed celebrations in July 2023 to mark the 70th anniversary of the company’s factory in the coastal region of Cacia.

In his speech, Redondo announced that the new plant will produce 100 million biodegradable packages a year for the restaurant and food market.

“We will therefore be contributing to deplasticisation,” he concluded, setting the stage for conflict with concerned local communities and environmental NGOs.

Government takes a middle road

Facing a trade-off between different sustainability goals, and between industry and communities, the Portuguese government has to date taken a middle road.

It’s ‘Programa de Transformação de Paisagem‘ programme adapts Portuguese landscapes that are vulnerable to fire. The programme focuses on replanting native tree species – so eucalyptus are excluded.

The government has also introduced fire safety restrictions on eucalyptus plantings within 10 metres of either side of roads and 100 metres of residential areas.

But while the government has imposed a ban on new eucalyptus plantations, there are no requirements to cut back existing eucalyptus growths.

Miguel Jerónimo is the project manager of the Renature project, which has planted 384,000 native trees over 1,195 hectares of Portugal since 2018. With a newly-elected centre-right government in Lisbon, Jerónimo expressed his fears to Euractiv that progress will not be maintained.

“Now there is a new government and a new political alignment so it is still unknown if the government will maintain the prohibition on new areas of eucalyptus or not,” he concluded.

[Edited by Donagh Cagney/Zoran Radosavljevic]

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