From 9 to 11 March the last project meeting linked to Forest Ed Erasmus + was held in Portugal which brings together 6 countries of the European Mediterranean area, many of which are linked to the Mediterranean Model Forests Network.
The theme of the project concerns the exchange of good practices and in particular the activities related to forestry and more generally environmental education in the various territories of the partners involved.
The program took place over three days, during which the delegation got to know the activities related to the environmental management of some areas of Portugal, in particular the District of Santarèm and Leiria. A part of this territory was hit by the terrible fires of 2017 which resulted in 115 victims and over 540,000 hectares of forest destroyed which completely changed the landscape. Since then, many actions have been implemented both for the population and for forest restoration.
The meeting was also an opportunity to present the concept of Model Forest to Portuguese partners and stakeholders through a conference attended by Toni Ventre as Secretary of the Mediterranean Model Forest Netword and Richard Verbisky as head of the International Model Forest Network. The delegates of the Model Forests present, on the other hand, were able to testify their experiences over the years.
The people involved were over thirty and were made up of delegations of 7 entities from 6 countries representing almost the entire Mediterranean arc of the European Union, in particular: the Provence Model Forest (France), leader of the project, the Regional Development Fund of Western Macedonia (Greece), the CESEFOR Foundation (Spain), ASPEA (Portugal), the Istria Model Forest (Croatia), the GRAINE network (France), as well as our Model Forest of the Florentine Mountains.
