Faixas Vivas travels around the country

The Meeting for the Forests is a collaborative initiative between Reflorestar Portugal, Citizens' Assemblies and Faixas Vivas, the latter being a movement created by Milvoz. This meeting seeks to raise awareness of the challenges of forest management in Portugal and will feature several events throughout 2025 and 2026. The first, the Citizens' Assembly of the Central region, took place on 25 October in Lousã.

The theme for this first meeting was "Monocultures, Biodiversity and Fires: Alternatives for a forest economy that is more resilient to fire and biodiverse" and, as it indicates, we discussed the state of degradation of the landscape and ecosystems, which is closely related to the dominance of eucalyptus and pine monoculture in much of the Central region.

Around thirty citizens fuelled a debate on the economic, social and environmental implications of Portugal's current forestry situation, and future strategies were proposed to seek to create a multifunctional, productive and biodiverse landscape. It is a huge privilege to be part of this project.