Josep Maria Vila d'Abadal, forest owner and former mayor of Vic, calls for a pact between the urban world and forest areas to help conserve forest masses and their economy. "Trees are not prepared for this climate change, and they also die from heat stroke," warns the president of the PEFC forest certification system (Program for the Endorsement of Forest Certification, for its acronym in English).
The fires return to Catalonia...
The rains in May and June were opportune, they had helped us and made us think that this year the forest fires were a thing of the past, but unfortunately we see that the problem is structural and will never go away. However, we have the opportunity to make them less important and tailored to our country. This requires adequate management in the fight against forest fires, eliminating fuel as much as possible and considering the balance of all functions, productive and environmental.
People often talk about the abandonment of the forest; but what would be the most current balance?
The forest economy has continued to decline, as has the population that works in it. There is less industry than 30 years ago and there are fewer workers in it. The price of wood has not matched the evolution of costs.
For what is this?
Because there is a lot of wood in Europe and the price of wood does not rise. We are in a globalized market. There are areas of the world where there are true tree plantations; where the machines enter as if they were harvesting wheat and where a man can collect between 30 and 50 tons of wood a day while here we can collect 4 or 5 tons each. That's why the costs are different. Cork does give returns: a good job has been done and now it is more profitable.
And the paper?
We had the Torras Hostench paper mills in Girona and the one in Balaguer, but they closed. There have been many crises because they could not compete with the Nordics, who have large plantations, large properties destined for industrial uses. There are those who say that large plantations must be made to produce wood in the cultivated fields; but that is not valid, they are crops for food.
So?
We must value the services provided by the forest, and not just wood. Now we only earn income from the extraction of wood. The income obtained thanks to the landscape only goes to the tourism sector, to leisure, to hoteliers, but the forest owner does not obtain that return.
And how to reward him?
We must raise awareness in the leisure and tourism sector, which lives from the forest. If the forest burns no one will come. The Administration must help. We propose promoting a law for the social use of the forest. We must regulate that use. It would be a way of organizing: knowing when you go to the forest, how you go and ordering this presence for whoever goes by bicycle, motorbike or on foot. We should regulate it.
Does the forest continue to grow in Catalonia?
Yes, a lot. As Martí Boada says, when man leaves, the forest enters. The forest increases and the presence of wild animals, game, deer or roe deer increases; we leave the forest and they enter. The environmental value of the forest is higher than the productive one; for its value of water preservation, erosion prevention, biodiversity. We must give a value to that.
As?
There are a thousand proposals. The most important is to achieve a 30% exemption from personal income tax on forestry investments. We are talking about unprofitable investments, which do not provide benefits: a path for the extraction of wood or for the fight against forest fires, clearing to improve an oak forest that will not be profitable until after 100 years or recovery with native plants which areas erode. 80% of the actions they do in the forests are not profitable. With these aids, on the other hand, we would attract investment and we will have well-kept forests. In France, an owner who has a farm in a natural area pays less (taxes). In France the owners want to have natural parks because they bring many advantages; not here.
Explore new paths...
We have to give a value to forest services, or their food; That is why we have published the book "El bosc a la taula", which contains recipes from the forests prepared by the 20 best chefs. It is aimed at those who are interested in the gastronomic world, such as consumers, collectors or companies that sell products of forest origin to make them understand the need to manage forests rationally in the face of current threats.
Do the owners want to charge for the mushrooms?
We have vindicated its value. But we don't want to be the bad guy. It is the Administration that must find a way to make the value of the mushrooms revert to the forest, be it collection rates or other formulas. Why do all the taxes go to protect the climate or the Agència de la Natura (conservation)? A part must also go to the forestry sector, to whom the forest works. Why is a fee not paid for the collection of mushrooms so that the forest is more productive and more 'bolets' are collected? There has always been opposition to introducing taxes that revert in favor of the forest. We proposed it, even if it was a penny, in the water canon, but we did not succeed.
Several studies say that so much forest mass captures water and that is why the availability of resources is reduced...
That forest mass must be reduced. The forest is now thicker, there are more trees per hectare. We must know how many trees should be left so that there is no erosion but in a way that at the same time allows water to flow down. We must help the trees to adapt to the new climate.
What is another threat...
Lucky we have trees. When the great tropical storms come, as they announce to us, the trees will support the earth, prevent erosion and save us from the great avenues and catastrophes. But how many trees should we have? We have too many trees. It is necessary to make clearings so that everyone lives and so that there is water left for the river.
And face the pests. Which ones worry you the most?
We are concerned about all the pests due to the climate crisis. The Diplodia, a fungus that is killing the Scots pines, or the Tomicus, which is an insect that has killed all the pines on the coast and in the Maresme. We are concerned about all the plagues due to the climate crisis. Drought weakens the stands of trees and pests enter. It is the problem that is coming our way. They will not only die from droughts, but from pests. We have seen temperatures of more than 40ºC, up to 45.3ºC. The trees have been born in another climate, they are not prepared for this climate and they die from heat strokes. We are worried about the fire but the mortalities due to drought and heat will also be terrible.
There are those who propose leaving the forest to its natural evolution, leaving it untouched, that it evolve on its own to recover a certain "original" forest, richer in biodiversity...
Ecologists, speaking of leaving forests at least a part to their natural evolution, tell us that it takes a thousand years to have a primeval forest.
But when people talk in Catalonia about leaving the forest to its natural evolution, they consider doing it in very specific plots...
No, I do not criticize this idea. I am referring to other regions where more than 100,000 hectares have been left to natural evolution; they went overboard. Here we must focus the debate. But more than leaving them to natural evolution, we must talk about mature forests, which you must also take care of, as you take care of an older person. Leaving them to natural evolution means doing nothing. But for millennia this circumstance has not occurred. We don't know her. The idea is raised by the Xarxa per a la Conservació de la Natura, officials and some environmental group. It seems to me an excessively radical option. You have to see where, when and why. But mostly where. And no decree has been made that defines what a mature forest is.
Don't you see it well?
Now 40% of the forests are in a phase of natural evolution. It's a barbarity. They are areas where nothing has been done for 30 or 40 years, areas where nothing is done because they are not profitable, because they are far away. And I speak of precious forests; areas that are impossible to reach, beech or pine forests in steep places, in the Pyrenees. There they will remain to natural evolution. Let's take inventory of what we really have, let's take a new inventory by Creaf. Sometimes we argue over things that don't make any sense. Sometimes we make diagnoses from the 80s, 80s hobbies. But today we have more forests than ever; we still abandon crops. And what will we do with the hectares of agriculture that will not be profitable, will we plant trees?
But if we have said that there are plenty of trees, should we reforest?
In Catalonia, no. The proposal of the European Commission to plant millions of trees does not work here, in Catalonia
Have the owners benefited from having a farm in a space classified as Red Natura 2000?
Europe has deceived us by promising a lot of money, and they have not given us a penny. There have been no compensations. And if you only have bans with no offsets… Most owners have given up. They have so many problems that they no longer act. And the lack of management leads us to the collapse and disappearance of the forest as we understand it. In France, an owner who has a farm in a natural space pays less taxes. In France the owners want to have natural parks because they bring many advantages; not here.
But you have had political influence, especially in the UDC. Were your proposals not attended considering that you were a government party?
I didn't have any kind of influence. Within political parties there are internal forces and their opinion groups. And we, the forest owners, have never been recognized for our role as environmental managers, we have been denied the status of ecologists. We are from the forestry world, but we are also environmentalists. In the lobbies of the parties, an ecological vision of the urban world predominates, more influential than that of the forest world. And when you make a proposal of this type in a party, it does not prosper. And it has happened in every game.
And has the ERC come to power served to close the gap between the forest world and the urban world, taking into account that many of its militants come from inland Catalonia?
No no. I'll tell you what, a lot of people won't believe. There is less respect for our work among people who come from the rural world, who live in towns, than among people from the city. People from Barcelona come, who are caricatured with the 'sunroof', but they watch, comply and behave in the forest; and then you have people from the rural world who argue with you and who think they know more than me...
In the debate on the creation of the Nature Agency, which was approved in Parliament in June 2020, but has not been established, you and the owners spoke out against it...
We were not against the concept, but against how things had been done and the way of governance. They did not consult us and they presented us with the proposal as something already done. We presented amendments so that not only the owners, but also the tourism sector, who are also in the natural environment, would have more participation. Very few were accepted.
They disagreed, and they disagree, about the management body, about who runs the Agency...
The resolution of environmental conflicts and forest management requires good governance where we are all including the property. This is what has been done in the regulation of the plan that governs the Montseny where an owner is at the address.
The delay in the constitution of the Nature Agency is enormous. It has not been created, and after approval in Parliament in June 2020, it was established that the regulation would be made in one year...
It was said that the internal regulations of the Agency would be consulted and that there would be some modifications to include someone from the tourism sector above all.
It's a years late...
The Generalitat told us at the end of last year that it would present the regulation to us before approving it. But they have not presented it to us, they do not want to present it to us. Now they already have the regulation ready, but it must be approved by the Government. They have the commitment, which is from the previous Government (Junts), that they would pass it on to us for consultations, and they do not want to pass it on for consultations. They must think we won't like it.
