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Pine tree disease “out of control” The head of the Federation for National Forestry Production Associations (FNAPF), Vasco Campos, has this week warned the Government that pine tree disease known as the nematode is “continuing to spread in an uncontrollable fashion” due to lack of combative measures. However, the Ministry for Agriculture has said that it is “optimistic” that the situation will improve. Vasco Campos announced this week “the fight against the nematode has reached a standstill. The Authority for National Forestry (AFN) drew up a series of wild pine disease-combating measures in a protocol with [producer] associations, but that protocol reached an end on December 31st”. In wood, the nematode disease is caused by microscopic organism carried by an insect that contaminates all trees through which it passes, mainly affecting the tree’s crown and its branches. Mr. Campos, who is also the president of the Beira Serra Forestry Association CAULE, further stressed that wild pine trees are at risk of disappearing altogether from central Portugal. This opinion is also shared by Isménio de Oliveira, coordinator of central Portugal’s SEBALDIC forestry association, who said there was a “true lack of information about reality”. “There is a lack of information from the Ministry of Agriculture about the reality of the situation, we know that the area that the pine tree disease has affected has grown, there are counties like Arganil and Castanheira de Pêra where there are more dead pine trees now then there were three months ago, but we don’t know why”, he complained. Isménio de Oliveira also laments that at the moment “on the ground the nematode battle plan is not working”. The Ministry for Agriculture has guaranteed that “action for identifying and eliminating trees with symptoms of decline” is in place and being carried out by various associations, and that “all protocols had not yet been carried out, though the funds are available”. A source from the Ministry for Agriculture said that “the results so far are optimistic taking into account the perspectives of expansion of the pine wood nematode in the central region”. It has been estimated that in that particular part of the country up to 1.9 million trees have already perished. CAULE further reported that the there had been “enormous difficulties” for the management of the Forestry Intervention Zones (ZIF) to be eligible for the appropriate programmes in combating the nematode because of the bureaucracy that has been imposed. “We are loosing the EU’s money; ZIFs are having tremendous difficulties in registering for the PRODER Programme (Programme for Rural development) because it demands impractical requirements”, argued Vasco Campos. In Portugal, experts first voiced concerns about the possible wipe out of pine trees forests from the killer bug that caused ecological catastrophes in East Asia in early 2008. In October 2008 the then Minister for Agriculture, Jaime Silva, confirmed that nearly one million trees had been cut down in Portugal in an attempt to control the destruction being caused by the pine tree nematode. Since the late 1990s, Portugal has spent an estimated €300 million in controlling pine tree plagues by felling and burning.
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