Watercourses and riparian vegetation in forest plantations have long been treated as "lost strips": too wet for production and too narrow to be a priority, often ending up dominated by invasive alien species. This article argues that this perspective has changed and that transforming these strips into conservation corridors constitutes "cutting-edge technology" for 21st-century forest management. The author, Bruna Oliveira, a researcher at CESAM at the University of Aveiro, explains that a well-designed conservation corridor increases species diversity, creates moisture and shade gradients that reduce stress during drought periods, and offers refuge, food, and movement routes for wildlife.
These conservation corridors also function as fire prevention tools by introducing lines of higher moisture, less flammable vegetation, and discontinuities in fuel structure. The author argues that the Portuguese forest cannot continue to be a monoculture of risks, and that it is necessary to create mosaics with varied combustibility patterns. The corridors do not remove productivity from the system, but stabilize it and reduce potential losses in extreme events. Research already allows for quantification of installation and maintenance costs, benefits in timber, carbon sequestration, wildfire risk reduction, and hydrological regulation.
In 2024, the European Union approved the Nature Restoration Regulation (Regulation EU 2024/1991), which sets binding targets to restore at least 20% of land and marine areas by 2030 and all degraded ecosystems by 2050. The European Commission is also preparing a nature credits system, complementary to carbon markets, to certify positive outcomes for biodiversity and ecosystem services. In this context, conservation corridors can become strategic assets that generate additional income for landowners and businesses.
The author presents concrete proposals for the pine sector and other forest sectors, including the integration of corridors into management plans, the valorization of invasive biomass as a raw material in circular economy, and the use of remote monitoring with standardized indicators. Bruna Oliveira emphasizes that conservation corridors require collaboration between researchers, landowners, forest associations, industry, protected area managers, and local communities, being simultaneously an ecological object and a social process that can transform forest management into something more diverse, fair, and resilient.
