In 2023, Rewilding Portugal once again opened its volunteer fire monitoring programme in Ermo das Águias rewilding area in Pinhel for three months, welcoming several dozen volunteers during this period in yet another successful edition.
The main aim of this initiative was to actively monitor the landscape in order to discourage arson and detect fire outbreaks at an early stage, where they are easier to control and contain, and this volunteer programme took place in Ermo das Águias rewilding area, in Vale de Madeira, in the municipality of Pinhel, an area that is home to small populations of semi-wild horses and taurus, cliffs overlooking the River Côa where a population of griffon vultures nests and is the territory of the golden eagle and many other species of beautiful birds. This area is especially critical in this respect, as it has suffered the devastating effects of rural fires in the past, all too frequently.
Frequent rural fires are a threat to nature conservation and restoration, restarting forest succession with each fire and maintaining a simplified landscape of rocks and pebbles, preventing carbon sequestration, creating soil erosion and destroying habitats. The best way to prevent this is to restore ecosystems through large herbivores in order to reduce the biomass load on the landscape, and this surveillance process in the months of greatest risk (June to September) is also very important in this prevention process.
This fire monitoring programme, as part of the LIFE ENPLC – The European Networks for Private Land Conservation project, took place on a voluntary basis, with four hours of active fire monitoring per day, usually at the end of the day, with Rewilding Portugal providing accommodation and food for all the monitors, and bicycles were always made available to help with travel.
The chance to be in direct contact with the work carried out by Rewilding Portugal on the ground and to contribute to this cause were the main reasons why hundreds of people applied for this volunteer programme, which sold out in record time, and which then brought several dozen volunteers (more than thirty in total) to take part in the programme, in yet another successful and ignition-free edition in Ermo das Águias and the surrounding area.