National park to gain 10,000 new trees

Portugal’s Peneda-Gerês (PNPG) national park is to be reforested with 10,000 new trees by the end of the year, as part of the ‘O melhor para si e para a Natureza’ campaign.
This campaign, launched and developed in 2010 by Tetre Park and the Agros dairy company is directed at consumers, and has raised €18,000 to purchase indigenous tree specimens such as oaks.
For each carton of milk that was placed in the yellow recycling bins, the promoting companies donated three cents to the purchase of trees to reforest the burnt areas at the PNPG national park.
A total of 590,000 cartons were recycled, which raised the €18,000.“It was more than we were expecting,” admitted Ingrid Falcão, Tetra Park’s environmental officer.
Eliana Matos from Agros said that the campaign’s big success was the fact that consumers understood the brand’s message, which focuses on “the preservation of the environment and heritage.”
As part of the campaign, an area of around nine hectares will be reforested at PNPG, in Vilar da Veiga, Terras de Bouro, with 1,000 trees already having been planted during a first phase.

The second phase started last week and will include the planting of more than 10,000 trees until the end of the year.
Students from the EB 2/3 Celeiros school from Braga in northern Portugal were invited to plant trees under the supervision of park staff.
“Trees give us oxygen and they are good for humanity,” one student told Lusa News Agency.
The natural park’s director, Lagido Domingos, highlighted the “dual importance” of this campaign, for motivating society to become involved in the recovery of land that had been burnt.
“On the other hand, the involvement of students is always useful in terms of environmental education,” he added.
According to Mr. Domingos, around 10,000 hectares of the park were burnt in 2010, with around 70,000 trees having been identified as dead or dying as a result.
Fonte: News online