Portugal's forests cover approximately 3.3 million hectares, which is about 38% of the country's total land area; if mixed agroforestry systems are also included, the total area reaches as much as 47% of the national territory. The total growing stock in forest stands amounts to ~188 million cubic metres. The average annual volume of harvest or wood extraction is ~11.5 million cubic metres per year. This volume is primarily composed of two main species – eucalyptus for pulp production and maritime pine timber for sawn wood. In addition to wood, a very famous and important product is Portuguese cork, the production of which reaches approximately 100,000 tonnes per year, steadily providing half of the global market volume.
First Republic
The development of Portuguese forestry over the last century has been determined by drastic changes in political regimes and waves of industrialisation, which can be divided into four phases.
Following the overthrow of the monarchy in 1910, the newly created First Republic of Portugal took over the reforestation plans initiated at the end of the 19th century. During this period, the state began to more actively define “forest perimeters” – areas in the country's mountainous regions and coastal dunes that were placed under the supervision of the national forest service to stop erosion and dune movement. Chronic political instability and a lack of funding prevented large-scale planting efforts.
With the consolidation of the authoritarian regime (Estado Novo) and the rise to power of António de Salazar, forest management underwent aggressive centralisation. A turning point was the Forest Plan of 1938, the implementation of which reached its peak in the 1950s and 1960s.
The state massively expropriated or forcibly took over community lands in the mountains of northern and central Portugal to plant hundreds of thousands of hectares of maritime pine (Pinus pinaster) monocultures. This process caused great social tension as local people were deprived of their traditional grazing grounds. In the mid-20th century, targeted expansion of eucalyptus plantations began in response to the demands of the local pulp industry. The state encouraged the planting of these fast-growing trees, which laid the foundation for modern industry but simultaneously irreversibly changed the landscape structure.
After the 1974 Carnation Revolution, the forest management model collapsed. In 1976, the new democratic government passed a law that returned historical forests and land to the ownership and management of local communities. As the state lost control over a large portion of the areas, the forests ended up in an extremely fragmented private sector.
The mass migration of residents from the interior of the country to coastal cities led to the abandonment of agricultural land and forests. Traditional undergrowth clearing, firewood collection, and livestock grazing in the forests ceased, resulting in a massive accumulation of dry biomass in the forests. In the last quarter of the 20th century, with financial support from World Bank programmes, private owners felled ordinary pines and replaced them with eucalyptus, which provided faster profits.
Fire crisis and reforms
Since the turn of the millennium, Portugal's forest management has been in a constant state of crisis dictated by catastrophic forest fires. The tragic fires of 2003 and, in particular, 2017 forced the country to completely overhaul its policy.
Today, the focus of management has shifted from maximum wood extraction to fire safety and landscape diversification. The state has established the Institute for Nature Conservation and Forests – ICNF, introduced a mandatory requirement for clearing undergrowth around populated areas, and legally restricted the creation of new eucalyptus plantations. The main emphasis is placed on the cooperation of small owners or the ZIF system and attracting European Union funds to restore more fire-resistant and biologically diverse native oak forests.
The “three pillars” of the Portuguese forest industry
Portugal's timber industry and forestry production are based on three main pillars, the most internationally well-known of which is the cork industry. Portugal is a clear world leader in this niche, providing about half of all global cork production. The regular and careful stripping of cork oak bark provides a high-value-added material that is exported worldwide – mainly in the form of wine bottle stoppers, design objects, and sustainable building insulation materials.
The second huge and economically influential sector is the pulp and paper industry, dominated by industrial giants of international scale, such as Altri and The Navigator Company, which not only process wood but manage fast-growing eucalyptus plantations on a large scale. The pulp obtained from eucalyptus wood is used for the production of high-quality office paper, packaging, and hygiene products, making this sector one of the country's main drivers of exports.
The third direction consists of traditional sawn timber production and wood energy, which primarily use maritime pine wood. This sector supplies the local and regional market with sawn timber for construction, furniture manufacturing, and the production of wooden pallets for the transport industry. In recent years, the use of forest biomass has experienced rapid development – logging residues and low-quality wood are increasingly being diverted for the production of pellets and for the generation of green electricity and heat in combined heat and power plants.
The “Montado” phenomenon
To fully understand the link between Portugal's forest sector and nature conservation, it is important to examine in detail the cork oak stands or the so-called “Montado” phenomenon. Montado is a unique agroforestry pastoral system created over centuries, found mainly in the country's southern regions, such as Alentejo. The system combines three elements – forestry, agriculture, and livestock grazing – creating a harmonious mosaic landscape. Cork oaks provide shade and retain soil moisture; beneath them, grain is sown or livestock are grazed, such as black pigs that feed on acorns, while the trees themselves provide valuable cork bark every nine years without damaging the tree itself.
From an ecological point of view, Montado is one of the richest ecosystems in the Mediterranean region, serving as a home to countless endangered species, including the Iberian lynx and the Spanish imperial eagle. These forests act as a natural barrier against desertification, which seriously threatens Southern Europe due to climate change. Cork oaks have an excellent ability to sequester carbon dioxide and retain it even after the bark has been harvested, making this system a critically important element in achieving Portugal's climate goals. As cork oaks are naturally more fire-resistant than eucalyptus or pine, these stands also serve as natural fire protection strips in the landscape.
Maintaining this unique ecosystem requires strict legal regulation and prevention, especially given the massive forest fires that plague the country every summer. Portuguese legislation determines that cork oaks and holm oaks are national heritage and their felling without the permission of state authorities is strictly prohibited, even if the tree is on private property. Following the devastating fires of recent years, much stricter preventive regulations have been introduced in the country. Landowners have a legal obligation to regularly clear the shrub layer and undergrowth within a certain radius of residential houses and roads. If the owner does not do this by a set deadline in the spring, the municipality has the right to carry out the clearing compulsorily and bill the owner for double the cost plus a fine.
Landscapes, plantations, and land registration
Portugal is actively working on landscape transformation, legally restricting the planting of new eucalyptus plantations in regions where fire risk has reached a critical threshold. Instead, with new European Union support programmes, the state financially stimulates and compensates owners for the transition to mixed-type forests, where eucalyptus monocultures are replaced by native oak, chestnut, and stone pine stands. Mosaic landscape planning, combined with strict undergrowth control and cooperative management, has become Portugal's main strategy to maintain the forest economy while protecting nature from the threats posed by the climate crisis.
For Portugal's small forest owners to successfully qualify for funding from this programme, they must first overcome the country's biggest historical obstacle – legal land registration. The applicant must be registered in the official BUPi (Balcão Único do Prédio) system, which is the national digital cadastre for clarifying forest boundaries. Given the fragmentation of properties, priority and higher support rates are given to owners who have joined the aforementioned ZIFs or Special Forest Management Zones or forest cooperatives. Consolidation allows for the application for larger areas and the provision of a unified fire protection plan, which is a mandatory condition for receiving funding. Regarding the choice of tree species, the programme is clearly focused on the implementation of “climate-smart forestry” and sets strict ecological priorities.
It is practically impossible to receive funding for the planting of new eucalyptus monocultures. Instead, the state and the European Union primarily support and subsidise three main groups of trees.
Firstly, these are native oaks – the cork oak (Quercus suber) and the holm oak (Quercus ilex). Their planting is stimulated the most because these trees are long-lived, excellently adapted to the drought of the Mediterranean region, and, thanks to their thick bark, are able to survive even medium-intensity fires. Support for these species helps restore traditional Montado systems, which ensure both biodiversity and future cork production.
Secondly, a great deal of emphasis is placed on other native deciduous and coniferous species, such as European chestnuts (Castanea sativa), Mediterranean acacia species, and especially stone pines (Pinus pinea). Stone pines are economically very attractive because they produce pine nuts, providing the owner with regular income even before the tree reaches felling age; at the same time, they are much more fire-resistant than ordinary maritime pine.
Thirdly, the programme highly values the creation of mixed forest stands and the principle of a mosaic landscape. Even if an owner restores commercial maritime pine plantations, certain percentages of the area must be allocated to native deciduous trees, which serve as natural fire safety buffer strips. Such species diversification is the main condition for small-area owners not only to receive money for forest planting but also to guarantee annual maintenance payments over the next 15–20 years.
“Green desert” – political, social, and environmental scandals
The Portuguese forestry sector has regularly faced conflicts in recent decades, most of which are rooted in the clash between aggressive commercial interests and public safety, exacerbated by disasters caused by climate change.
One of the longest-standing and sharpest conflicts is related to the uncontrolled expansion of eucalyptus plantations, which environmental activists and local communities call a “green desert”. Pulp production companies and small landowners, chasing quick profits, spent decades replacing native oak stands with eucalyptus; the latter consume large amounts of water, dry out the soil, destroy biodiversity – nothing grows under them – and are extremely fire-prone due to the essential oils in their wood.
When it was revealed that the pulp lobby had for years successfully blocked or softened bills attempting to limit the planting of new plantations, the patience of Portuguese society reached its limit. Although the government officially banned the expansion of eucalyptus areas, environmental organisations regularly report on illegal plantations that state authorities are unable or unwilling to control.
The biggest and most serious scandal in modern Portuguese history broke out after the forest fires in June and October 2017, in which a total of more than 110 people lost their lives. This tragedy turned into a massive political and legal scandal. In the Pedrógão Grande region, dozens of people burned to death in their cars on the EN236-1 national road, which emergency services did not block in time. The road was surrounded on both sides by dense, uncleaned eucalyptus stands, creating a literal “fire tunnel”. The investigation revealed catastrophic flaws in the state's emergency communications system, SIRESP. At the critical moment, the system collapsed, and firefighters could not communicate with each other. A scandal erupted over the state's financially disadvantageous contract with a private company to maintain this system, ignoring technical defects.
As a result of the tragedy, Portugal's Minister of Internal Affairs resigned, and legal proceedings were initiated against local officials and electricity grid operators for negligence and failure in clearing undergrowth. However, after the devastating fires of 2017, a Portuguese court acquitted everyone accused of negligence, basing its decision on extraordinary natural conditions and the state's systemic failure. Meanwhile, the economic influence of large pulp and paper manufacturing companies has allowed them for decades to successfully lobby for favourable regulations and the expansion of eucalyptus plantations.
Economic dependence as a political lever
The pulp and paper industry lobby in Portugal is one of the most economically and politically influential forces in the country. Its influence directly determines how forestry laws are drafted, where state and European Union funding goes, and why, despite very high fire risks, eucalyptus plantations still cover a significant part of the country's territory. The lobbying mechanisms of the pulp industry and their direct impact on political decisions are manifested at several levels.
The main argument of the lobby in negotiations with the government is the industry's massive importance to the national economy. Industrial giants, such as The Navigator Company and Altri, together with the industry association CELPA, provide almost 5% of all Portuguese exports, which is approximately 3 billion euros per year. Since the industry employs thousands of people directly in the poorest rural regions, companies use this influence to warn politicians – any strict restrictions on eucalyptus will lead to job losses, factory closures, and a drop in export revenue, which will directly affect government ratings.
Historically, the pulp lobby has been able to achieve favourable legal regulations or the ineffectiveness of new restrictions. A vivid example is the 2013 Forest Code reform, when, as a result of lobbying pressure, regulations for planting eucalyptus in small areas were significantly liberalised, which led to the uncontrolled expansion of plantations. When, after the 2017 tragedies, the government, under public pressure, finally passed a law prohibiting the increase of the total eucalyptus plantation area in the country, the lobby achieved legal exceptions. Companies were allowed to carry out “forest regrouping”, i.e., they are allowed to eliminate less productive stands in one place in order to legally establish much denser and more intensive commercial plantations elsewhere, keeping the total area unchanged “on paper”, but increasing the environmental impact of eucalyptus.
Environmental activist organisations regularly raise the alarm because the pulp lobby manages to divert public funding to achieve its profit goals. Even in programmes intended for forest restoration and fire prevention, the rules are formulated in such a way that a large part of the funds goes to the maintenance of fast-growing monocultures and related infrastructure, not to the restoration of natural forests. The lobby has also successfully achieved state subsidies for burning forest biomass in pulp mill combined heat and power plants. Companies present this as “green energy” and help in cleaning undergrowth, while eco-activists and critics point out that it creates a financial incentive to burn large quantities of wood, strengthening intensive forestry.
Is eucalyptus the cause of fires?
The industry invests huge sums in its research centres and collaborative projects with universities to build a favourable opinion among politicians and the public. The lobby actively promotes the narrative that eucalyptus is not the cause of fires but the solution, namely, that corporately managed and carefully tended eucalyptus forests burn less than abandoned private properties. This argument is used to convince the government to hand over the management of abandoned rural areas to industrial producers. When independent expert commissions after fires come out with conclusions about the need to radically reduce the proportion of eucalyptus, pulp companies fund large-scale media campaigns and public manifestos, disputing these studies and calling them “ideological attacks” without scientific basis. This is how the pulp industry lobby ensures that Portugal's political elite is forced to balance between the public's demand for safety and the fear of losing one of the country's most important economic pillars; as a result, state reforms are often a compromise.
“Fire business”
Forest firefighting in Portugal has become a significant business, around which corruption scandals regularly arise, which local media call “fire business” – negócio du fogo. Criminal cases have been initiated several times against officials of the Ministry of Internal Affairs and the Civil Protection Authority for illegalities and bribery in the procurement of firefighting helicopter and aircraft rentals. Cases were revealed where millions of euros were paid for equipment that could not take off for technical reasons. Unlike other countries, Portugal largely relies on volunteer firefighters and their organisations. Conflicts arose over the distribution of state funding – associations were accused of wasting funds, while they blamed the government for a chronic lack of equipment and protective gear.
Property rights chaos
Today, the hottest conflict is between the state and small forest owners regarding mandatory undergrowth clearing. To prevent new fires, the government set heavy fines and the right for municipalities to compulsorily clear private forests if the owner does not do so by spring.
This caused huge dissatisfaction in rural regions. Many forest plots belong to elderly pensioners or heirs of former owners who live abroad and do not even know the precise boundaries of their property due to a lack of cadastre. Owners argue that the costs of clearing undergrowth often exceed the value of the land plot, blaming the state for its inability to sort out the system before resorting to repression and punishment.
Forest certification in Portugal – situation and specifics
Certification in Portugal is of crucial importance for the country to be able to export forest products – paper, pulp, and cork – to European and global markets. However, Portugal's unique and extremely fragmented forest ownership structure creates specific difficulties in implementing these standards. Portugal has a relatively small part of the total forest area certified; in recent years, this figure has been rising rapidly, thanks to pressure from the pulp industry and new standards.
FSC has a larger lead in Portugal. About 24% of the country's total forest area is FSC certified. FSC certification covers more than half a million hectares, and a strong national office operates in the country – FSC Portugal. Conversely, PEFC historically covers a smaller area – about 10% of the country's forests. PEFC certification is based on the Portuguese national standard NP 4406, which is based on the Pan-European criteria for sustainable forest management.
As Portugal is a large processing hub, hundreds of FSC and PEFC chain-of-custody certificates are registered in the country for companies that transform and sell wood and cork products.
The biggest contradiction in Portuguese forest certification is the gap between large corporate forces and hundreds of thousands of small private owners. The majority of certified areas – more than 80% – are actually controlled by large pulp and paper companies, which have sufficient financial and administrative resources to meet strict international criteria. Since the average forest property in northern and central Portugal is less than one or two hectares, individual certification for small farmers is economically impossible due to excessively high costs and bureaucracy. To address this, both FSC and PEFC have been actively developing group certification models in recent years, which allow associations of small forest owners to apply for a certificate together, sharing costs and jointly managing fire protection measures.
In Portugal, forest certification is not just a marketing tool – it serves as an alternative nature conservation mechanism in a country where the share of state forests is very small – under 2%. Approximately 20% of FSC-certified areas in Portugal are designated as conservation or protected areas; a portion of them have no other state legal protection status. Certification imposes an obligation on the owner to protect these places. Certification standards require strict control of undergrowth, the creation of buffer zones, and the monitoring of water resources. In certified areas, fire prevention is carried out at a much higher level than in uncertified and abandoned forests. Recently, a revised FSC standard was introduced in Portugal, which specifically facilitates the acquisition of certification for non-wood products, such as cork and pine resin. This helps ensure better income for traditional Montado forestry systems and motivates owners not to plant eucalyptus plantations.
Sources: Portuguese and European Union information websites