Following the increasing forest devastations, the Spanish newspaper El País has realized the importance of raising citizens’ awareness of this urgent subject.
Among the various initiatives that have been carried out to address this problem, the country’s main newspaper has reported and given voice to one of the LIFE projects: the Resilient Forests project.
For years, the Technical University of Valencia in Spain has been studying and testing solutions to deal with the managing bushfires problem.
Their studies start from the idea that the answer lies in a forest management system able to improve forests resilience to wildfires, water scarcity, environmental degradation and other effects induced by climate change.
In this interview, María Gonzales – Sanchis, researcher at the University of Valencia, shows the system developed which provides and constantly monitors the flow of water for the trees. In this way, she says “Tree has more water, is more hydrated, grows more and has a greater ability to deal with problems resulting from climate change such as drought, pests or forest fires.”
The El País correspondent also visited the pellet plant installed in Sierra municipality. This plant collects the residues wood from the fallen trees, it minces them to produce pellets, which then is used for heating. “With the initiative, the city avoids the emission of 83 tons of CO2 per year”.
As Antonio Del Campo, researcher from the University of Valencia, marks: “it is the soil that gives life to everything. If we lose the soil, we lose the ability to have forest, vegetation … when we lose the forests this soil degrades.”
Watch the video here: https://www.facebook.com/elpais/videos/1600847483389392/