They are the Australian trees that dominate many of the mountains in northern Spain. Exotic and invasive species, inherited from the Franco dictatorship, who found in the eucalyptus the formula to repopulate the meadows that were no longer suitable for pasture or the lands that were no longer cultivated, in the late 1940s and early 1950s. Defended by the paper and timber industry and demonized by environmentalists and biologists, the eucalyptus struggle is a struggle that has continued over the years based on a dichotomy: environmental impact or economic benefit.
The Cantabrian coast is the one that takes the cake in terms of cultivated hectares, thus in Galicia there are a total of 174,000 hectares cultivated with eucalyptus, more than 60,000 in Asturias, 39,000 in Cantabria and 14,500 in the Basque country.
In Asturias, eight percent of the forest land is dedicated to the cultivation of eucalyptus, it is the species that occupies the least surface area and from which the most use is obtained, according to Profoas, the Association of Forest Owners of the Principality. From Profoas, its president, Iván Fernández, explains the reason why they demand cultivation alternatives that are incorporated into those permitted, with the aim of generating optimal forest masses and preventing the forest from falling into abandonment, becoming potential pasture for the fires. “They are the most profitable forests there are and the owners take great care of them,” he says.
Precisely the high flammability of eucalyptus wood is one of the risks entailed by the massive cultivation of this species, according to the environmental biologist, Xabier Vázquez Pumariño, who assures that administrations should ask themselves the money that is earned with eucalyptus and that is lost by not dedicating the land to other types of crops. From Galicia he has been fighting the cultivation of eucalyptus for years and announces that Asturias will soon end up finding itself in the same situation as the neighboring community, if it does not change the course of its forestry policy, due to the flammable effect of this species and its consequences, therefore, in the spread of fires.
“Where there is eucalyptus, there is nothing else,” says Puamriño, who explains that native species disappear when eucalyptus appears because coexistence with this exotic species is impossible: biodiversity disappears. Short cutting cycles, CO2 emissions higher than they retain or the generation of tracks that favor the movement of water during periods of heavy rain are other negative consequences that eucalyptus has, for this Galician biologist.
Asturias Forest Plan
The Government of the Principality of Asturias is currently immersed in the full review of the Forest Plan, with the preparation of a document that will be valid until 2036 and aims to update the Action Plan, which dates back to 2001, to, among other issues, give accommodates the new Forestry Law.
In this new regulation, the Principality considers accepting the request of eucalyptus growers and authorizing the increase in species to be cultivated. In this way, Asturias will incorporate the cultivation of Eucalyptus globuluswhich according to biologists and ecologists “has the Asturian thing collapsed”, that of the Eucalyptus nitens, a species prohibited until 2009 due to its expansive capacity and impact on the rural environment, and suitable for cultivation at altitude, as it withstands frost and can be cultivated from 500 meters, an altitude that the ‘globulus’ does not support.
From the Asturian Government, Javier Vigil, director of Forest Policy, defends that at no time has it been the intention of the Principality to increase the area allowed for the cultivation of eucalyptus, which is currently around 65,000 hectares, and that this is not even the sector demand. However, the Asturian director does understand that it is necessary to authorize cultivation beyond the Globulussince there are areas of Asturias in which eucalyptus plantations have phytosanitary problems.
Despite the calls for calm by the Asturian Executive, ensuring that the surfaces will remain limited and that in no case will the cultivation of species that have not passed the relevant studies be authorized, biologists and ecologists are up in arms, because they understand that the region should move towards reversing the damage caused, not towards promoting eucalyptus cultivation.
According to Hugo Robles, professor of Zoology at the University of Oviedo, we must reverse the damage caused after decades of crops with negative impacts on biodiversity, such as the simplification and loss of species, since native species cannot germinate under eucalyptus trees, he laments. .
This university professor is clear about the path and it is none other than the one that is aimed at the progressive elimination of eucalyptus cultivation and its replacement by local species, just as they have done, he explains, in the Monfragüe National Park. Impoverished soils, loss of biodiversity that gives rise to the generation of pests or problems in water resources, derived from the excess water absorbed by the eucalyptus, are other negative consequences for Robles.
The Asturian Government claims that forestry is just another industry, generating jobs and economic benefits for the region. The general director of Forestry Policy explains that the regulations of the Principality are scrupulous, and it is precisely because of this regulation, which he describes as strict, that there is no room for insecurity or fear. Thus, he has pointed out that the regulations for the marketing of wood are clear and that the European Union prevents the marketing of products derived from deforestation, “if you do not comply, you will have problems,” he says.
The Asturian Government plans to have the advanced document of the new Forest Plan in the first half of 2025, it will be the last step for its final approval.
More of the same
Although it is still a draft, what the document makes clear for Asturian environmentalists is that the cultivation of eucalyptus will continue in Asturias. Pedro Zamora, from the Coordinadora Ecoloxista n’ Asturies, regrets it, pointing out that the administration of the Principality only seeks to favor the paper pulp industry, which in the region operates as a monopoly, and that the Asturian Government “has little personality for change.”
To the environmental disaster that the massive cultivation of eucalyptus represents for environmentalists, in recent years the climate crisis has been added, a perfect cocktail that leads us, if no remedy is found, to a very dangerous environmental crisis. “The current forest design is not sustainable,” explains Pedro, but the economic profitability obtained from it “compensates them more than changing it.”
Asturias has more than 200 km of coastline populated with eucalyptus trees (Eucalyptus globulus) and is preparing to enter the Eucalyptus nitensalthough initially it is only authorized to replace the first and not as a new crop, it will end up assuming, according to Zamora, that in a few years not only the Asturian coast will be populated with eucalyptus trees, but also the mountain range.
The Coordinator has been fighting against the cultivation of eucalyptus in Asturias for more than 40 years and denouncing the consequences that this has for biodiversity and the environment. Now they warn that the disappearance of agricultural land in favor of forestry to plant masses of eucalyptus trees is truly alarming.
Even its detractors recognize that its existence is necessary, but controlled, not massified; in no case as a monoculture and limiting it to marginal lands; tending towards the use of other types of native crops to make paper dough; and even with the taxation, through taxes, of the forestry industry for the negative consequences derived from this species.
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