Quercus publicly denounced the Covilhã Municipal Council's plan to fell approximately 1400 cork oaks, including dozens of centenarian specimens, to expand the Tortosendo Industrial Park. This intervention is part of the municipality's Master Plan revision, currently in public discussion until Friday, September 4th. The affected area will also include 10 primary residences, whose owners will be expropriated.
The environmental association highlights that the current built industrial zone has half of its lots empty or abandoned, and that the need for expansion is due to current owners setting prices that are too high. Quercus believes the municipality should have expropriated those lots or forced the respective owners to build, instead of destroying a natural area and expropriating families from their homes. The project also includes 2 watercourses and 3 ponds, in an area with high water retention and several springs that will be waterproofed.
Quercus accuses the municipal council of bad faith for not referencing the cork oaks in the Municipality's Constraints Map, even after being formally notified of the existence of the forest stand by ICNF. The municipal authority refused to include the cork oaks in the documents, citing lack of georeferencing, an element that Quercus claims to have shared. The association recalls that the presence of a legally protected species, such as the cork oak, should force a review of the land classification and impose environmental restrictions.
Quercus calls on ICNF and CCDR-Centro not to authorize the destruction of the cork oaks, arguing that the
