Jose Luis Carneiro warns of ‘hard and challenging times’

The Home Secretary said this Saturday that “times will be difficult and very demanding” because of the wildfires. In Terras de Buro, José Luis Carneiro cited the recent forest fires in Spain as an example, where civil protection facilities even had to leave because of their inability to fight them.

“Between January and March, we had more fires and more burnt areas than last year,” the minister said during the opening of the Terras de Buro municipal civil protection center, the search and rescue center of the Peneda-Gerês National Park and one defibrillators, which will be available in Gerês. In this area, there is a large influx of tourists during the swimming season, during which forest fires and accidents with falls into the waterfalls of the national park are not uncommon.

Before José Luis Carneiro, the mayor of Terra de Buro, Manuel Thibaut, mentioned the need to rethink the visitor distribution strategy. “Fifty percent of the park’s visitors live in the municipality of Terras de Buro, and tourism is our ally in both wealth creation and job creation,” he said, according to the Terras do Homem newspaper.

The mayor advocated the placement of a telecommunications antenna in the Peneda-Gerês park, which would facilitate rescue work, as well as the need to re-qualify GNR posts. José Luis Carneiro replied that this issue had already been discussed with the Ministry of the Environment. “The power system needs to be built and they will push the infrastructure forward,” he said. As for the repair of the GNR facilities, the minister assured that “the inter-administrative agreement will be signed with the budget provided, and in addition, the city council will have to take over it.”