Created September 22, 2026
Claim ID #D0DE8AE99EBFIn the Serra da Estrela of central Portugal, the OTP Renature Estrela project supports reforestation and restoration on the Baldios da Freguesia de Cortes do Meio. The baldio is owned and managed collectively by the parish community through an elected Conselho Diretivo, and is used for grazing, forestry and rural livelihoods. Revenue from the land funds both its management and community services such as elderly care and scholarships.
Rua do Meio, 6200-146 Covillana, Castelo Branco, Portugal
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A forestry worker in full protective equipment operating a brushcutter on the baldio. Understory clearing is scheduled by parcel throughout the year and is one of the pillars of the community's fire-prevention programme.
Missing description
A treeless strip within the fuel break network on the baldio, kept structurally low-fuel through periodic maintenance. Where possible these strips are converted into agricultural pasture, generating revenue that funds the same maintenance work.
Mixed flock of sheep and goats grazing inside a young pine stand on the baldio. The community uses grazing as fuel management: animals consume the shrub and herbaceous layer beneath the canopy at a fraction of the cost of mechanical brushcutting.
A Pinus pinaster stand on the baldio with dark bark scorching on the lower trunks and a clean forest floor. The scorching is the signature of a low-intensity controlled understory burn deliberately set by the community to consume the surface fuel layer; the pines above the scorch line remain healthy. The result: reduced fuel load and lower crown-fire risk.
This section contains the detailed description of the claim to provide the necessary context to understand it.
This claim asserts that the OTP Renature Estrela project restores traditional communal baldio lands managed by local communities for grazing, forestry, and rural livelihoods. A baldio in Portugal is a specific category of communal land: not owned by the State, not owned by private individuals, but held collectively by the inhabitants of a parish and managed through an elected Conselho Diretivo. Once widespread across rural Portugal, baldios have lost ground to depopulation and competing land-use models over the last decades. Where they remain active, they are one of the most direct forms of community-led land stewardship in Europe. The claim covers the Baldios da Freguesia de Cortes do Meio, in the concelho da Covilhã (Castelo Branco district), inside Zona Crítica de Incêndios Florestais 11, the most fire-prone strategic area in central Portugal. The baldio covers approximately 2,800 hectares of forest, pasture and managed land. The 2017 mega-fire burned 1,993.80 hectares within the baldio itself, and most of the current Pinus pinaster cover is post-2017 natural regeneration. By supporting reforestation and restoration on this baldio, the project anchors part of the broader OTP Renature Estrela programme in a community institutional model rather than in third-party land. Restoration takes place on land that the community owns, manages, and depends on for its rural livelihood.
The baldio is governed by an elected Conselho Diretivo, supported by a forest engineer who authored the current Plano de Gestão Florestal (PGF), a 209-page management plan covering the territory at parcel level with silvicultural prescriptions, fuel break design, and an annual intervention calendar. On the land, the community manages a mosaic of complementary uses. Forestry centres on Pinus pinaster, the dominant cover after the 2017 fire, compartmentalised by patches of broadleaved species (Quercus spp., Castanea sativa, Arbutus unedo) that act as in-stand fuel breaks. A silvopastoral system brings 14 shepherds and close to 1,000 sheep and goats onto the baldio for grazing, with the animals also reducing fuel load under the canopy. Fire prevention runs as a transversal activity: understory cleaning by motorised crews working outside the critical fire season, controlled burns under the pine canopy and on mountain pastures, removal of storm-damaged dry wood, and roadside planting of Arbutus unedo, a low-flammability species, along the corridors where most ignitions start. Fuel break strips without tree cover are converted into agricultural pasture, which qualifies for EU CAP direct payments and remains structurally low-fuel through grazing and haying. Revenue from forestry, grazing rights, hunting concessions and CAP subsidies funds both the management works on the land and a set of community services for the parish: medication support for elderly community members, sports facilities for residents, and university scholarships for young people from the freguesia.
Rua do Meio, 6200-146 Covillana, Castelo Branco, Portugal