How to protect them?
Portugal has a long history of preserving large trees, however much remains to be done on this topic.
Here we highlight what we know exists on a national scale, and what we can start to do to bring the protection of the grove to a scale never seen before. We highlight here the three main ways of protecting large trees in Portugal:
Protection of holm oak and cork oak
Law No. 155/2004 - Establishes protection measures for the cork oak and holm oak .
This law is mainly focused on the protection of these two trees due to the economic value they represent, the cork oaks and the acorns of the holm oak.
Despite being two species protected at national level, they are not distributed throughout the territory.
These data were made available by the Flora-On Project
A.Carapeto, PVAraújo, F.Clamote, M.Porto, S.Malveiro, J.Lourenço, EPPereira, DTHolyoak, et al. (2019). Quercus suber L. - distribution map. Flora-On: Flora de Portugal Interactiva, Portuguese Botanical Society. http://www.flora-on.pt/#wQuercus+suber. Consultation held on 10/15/2019
Public interest grove
Law No. 53/2012 - Approves the legal regime for the classification of trees of public interest.
In Portugal there are (according to the most recent information provided by the ICNF IP.), 499 groves classified as of public interest and therefore protected by national law due to their:
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representativeness;
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rarity;
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postage;
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age;
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history;
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cultural significance or
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landscape setting.
Find them on the following map:
(made available with the support of Filipe Dâmaso Saraiva and Cláudia Rosado Silva, source of the ICNF IP data.)
These trees are listed in the RNAIP - National Register of Trees of Public Interest and correspond to trees that meet the different characterization criteria identified and specified in the Regulation with the development and densification of the assessment parameters and their correspondence to the classification criteria. of Public Interest , of March 5, 2018, approved by the ICNF IP.