New law to conserve and manage Spain's forests properly

Automatic summary, not yet reviewed

1. The law aims to guarantee the conservation and protection of Spanish forests, promoting their restoration, improvement and rational use, and it applies to all forests in the country.
2. Any land with forest vegetation serving environmental, productive or recreational functions counts as a forest (monteMonte Land with forest vegetation (trees, shrubs or grass) serving environmental, productive or recreational functions.), including abandoned farmland showing clear signs of forest state. Regional governments can set the minimum unit size that counts as a forest.
3. Forests are classified as public or private. Those listed in the Catalog of Public Utility Forests and others assigned to public use form the forest public domain, which cannot be sold, acquired by prescription or seized.
4. Owners are responsible for managing their forests, and public forests must have a management project, a dasocratic plan or another equivalent management instrument.
5. The law creates the Spanish Forest Statistics and establishes the Spanish Forest Strategy, the Spanish Forest Plan and forest resource management plans (PORFPORF Forest resource management plan: a forest planning tool for a county-sized area, integrated into land use planning.) as planning instruments.
6. Anyone who spots a forest fire must notify the authorities or emergency services and, where possible, help fight it. Changing the forest use of burned land is prohibited.
7. Subsidies, incentives for environmental benefits and subsidized credit are provided, but only for forests with a management instrument, with priority for protected and cataloged forests.
8. A sanctioning regime is established with fines from €100 to €1,000,000 depending on the seriousness of the offense, plus the obligation to repair the damage caused.

Who it affects

• Forest owners, public and private: They must manage their forests sustainably and, in many cases, adopt a management instrument to qualify for aid.
• The general public: Everyone must report forest fires and may help fight them; citizens may also use the forest public domain for activities respectful of nature.
• Regional governments (comunidades autónomas): They are the main forest authorities: they manage the Catalog, approve PORF plans and impose sanctions.
• Local governments: They manage their own forests and must devote at least 15% of the value of uses of cataloged forests to an improvement fund.

Words worth knowing

Monte

Land with forest vegetation (trees, shrubs or grass) serving environmental, productive or recreational functions.

Dominio público forestal (forest public domain)

Public forests given maximum legal protection: they cannot be sold, acquired by prescription or seized.

Catálogo de Montes de Utilidad Pública (Catalog of Public Utility Forests)

Official register of public forests specially protected for preventing erosion and floods or preserving nature.

Plan dasocrático (dasocratic plan)

A simpler forest management document than a full management project, for small forests or those not mainly producing timber.

PORF

Forest resource management plan: a forest planning tool for a county-sized area, integrated into land use planning.

It summarizes the law as published in the BOE. It is written by artificial intelligence and may contain mistakes: the official text is what counts. Read the official text · How we make summaries