José Almada Negreiros, in “A Invenção do Dia Claro”, wrote “when I was born, the sentences that would save humanity were all already written, there was only one thing missing – to save humanity”.
This is what I remembered when I started preparing the fire theme for today.
But, let’s not fool ourselves: neither Almada thought it was simple (and a century later it still isn’t) nor is saving Portugal from the tragedies we experienced last week obvious.
On the contrary – sweeping my forehead – I will say what I think should be done. But I do so with the resigned certainty that with a high probability it will never happen.
And yet, if there was a moment of national unity, it was the nights we spent watching flames on television. And this should not be wasted.
Tackling the problem seriously by enhancing this national unity would be something that would place the President of the Republic as someone who came to do something in accordance with his qualities, and thus reserve a place in History.
But it would only be like that if he hadn’t spent his powers talking every day for more than eight years several times into any microphone that appeared in front of him (or that he glimpsed in the distance) and taking selfies with all of us.
Things are as they are… or that’s life, as some said, in a way that clearly reveals the specificity of the Portuguese soul.
FIRES: CAUSES AND PREVENTIONS
To begin with, I picked up a text by Professor Xavier Viegas (but it could be someone else) in Público from a week ago.
In summary, this great expert listed a set of causal factors for last week’s major fires, and alluded to what has been done and what remains to be done.
Causal factors are, for him, (i) the rain that caused combustible matter to grow until the summer, (ii) the strong east wind, (iii) the extreme dryness of the materials, (iv) the non-existent humidity in the air (v ) the carelessness of the Portuguese.
Others mentioned (vi) entities interested in business upstream and downstream of the fires, (vii) mentally disturbed people, (viii) the almost diabolical attraction to the flames, (ix) the dry sparks that fly and end up reproducing fires, many of them from 8pm at night, and – last but not the least – (x) the worsening of the weather situation in Portugal.
What all these ten causes have in common is that when they occur – and, as Landscape Architect Henrique Pereira dos Santos explained a few days ago, natural phenomena are repeated with some regularity, for example in 2017 and 2024 – there is little or nothing What to do other than let it burn.
Things being like this, Xavier Viegas (and all other experts) say that the essential thing is to prevent fires. To this end, the aforementioned text mentions, among other relevant things to do (a) greater awareness among people, (b) management of agro-forestry spaces, (c) avoid large continuities of the same species, (d) reduce undergrowth in forest spaces, (e) have areas without vegetation that cut off fire, (f) identify who the owners are to force them to clean them, (g) create forest management condominiums, (h) manage the forest in a more productive way.
And others refer, as always, to (i) the reinforcement of human resources and equipment, (j) the increase in highly specialized training of firefighters in preventing and attacking forest fires.
Now, despite what has been done – and experts recognize – most of these preventive measures cannot be implemented and are of little or no use in situations like those of 2017 and this year.
As Xavier Viegas and others point out, we have been working in the area for almost 25 years and we have some of the best scientists in the world. In other words, deep down, Almada Negreiros is the one who is right.
FIRES: COURAGE OF IMPOTENCE OR REFORMS
At this point, I believe it will be clear to everyone reading me that the summary is that in practice we resign ourselves to saying that fires are like taxes or death (we will always have that with us), but in theory we fill the mouth to say that the solution lies in the preventive measures to be implemented, which we know will not occur in sufficient measure.
In fact, it enters through the eyes – like dust and smoke – that nothing that is proposed will happen. Therefore, we either have the courage to say that nothing will work or the courage to say and do what is necessary and pay the political price.
See, for example, (i) the creation of open areas without forest, (ii) the planting of trees of different species, (iii) the permanent cleaning of undergrowth and (iv) forest management is carried out in a productive. Basically, these are the main preventive measures that can drastically reduce fires.
If the rural land in these critical fire zones were large and owned by large owners (individual or collective), it would be possible to apply these measures, punish those who did not comply with them and ultimately implement the first eight fire prevention measures.
And as for the last two (having more specialized professionals and more equipment) they would even be financed by the owners, as paper companies do on their land, which burns much less and when it does burn, it is due to fires coming from outside.
Now, rural land in critical areas is smallholdings, it is often not known (nor do they…) who the owners are, they do not have the resources to support the costs of cleaning at least once a year, their production is not profitable. , many are lands that would be called ecological reserves, steep, inaccessible to mechanical means, not clean, without economic use and abandoned to arsonists or increasingly worse climatic factors.
Obviously, betting on voluntary-based condominium solutions will not work. Take the example (of which I had direct knowledge, but they are repeated everywhere) of someone who saw his entire well-maintained property of adequate size and a lot of investment burn down over the years, due to a fire coming from abandoned neighboring land, which he had tried to buy out of fear of what had happened, and which he didn’t even know who to turn to.
TREAT THE FOREST AS A REGULATED ACTIVITY
Therefore, the alternative to folding our arms and letting it burn (always once a year, saying some nonsense and promising some things) is to treat the forest as other economic areas are treated nowadays, in which there are rules for starting activities and to close companies that do not comply.
Indeed, just as you cannot open a bank or a university without complying with regulations, the State should also have the courage to regulate the forest, give a deadline for properties above a minimum size to be formed, expropriate what is not of an adequate size , starting with everything that appears to be abandoned.
Furthermore, the State should order the felling of trees in steep areas, require very strict maintenance plans for these areas, with expropriation for those who do not comply with them and, as an alternative, propose the acquisition of these lands to turn them into public areas protected from fires. .
I know that what I propose is politically explosive and even more so in a year of local elections. That’s why I don’t think any of this will be done, everyone opting for make-believe palliatives.
But it would be advisable to at least answer a question and carry out an investigation.
The question is: how much capital destruction did the Portuguese economy suffer in four days in September, added to the amount spent annually on CAPEX and OPEX to prevent this from happening?
The question is: how many fires and of what size affected industrial forest production lands (olive groves, cork groves, eucalyptus, pine forests, chestnut groves) and which ones did not come from neighboring lands?
We can continue to put our heads in the sand and pray that the climate changes and that the fires end. We can, but even Our Lady of Fátima can lose patience.
But if nothing can be done, let them have the decency not to try to deceive us into convincing ourselves that this is going to happen with palliatives and if not, that the climate, interests or the mentally disturbed are to blame.
All of this exists, of course. But without the courage of urgent and tough reforms, all this will continue to exist and with diabolical success. Inexorably.
THE TRAGEDY IN AZAMBUJA
He had also promised to talk about the 12-year-old boy who, at a school in Azambuja, threw himself at his classmates with a knife, injuring six, fortunately without any of them dying.
Little or nothing is known about the causes and motivations, but I saw it written that it may have been a psychotic episode, that it was influenced by what he saw on television and social media, that he was a victim of bullying, that he copied what he saw or practiced in games which are on many cell phones, which was becoming Nazi.
I don’t know, but this could probably have been all that led to the event.
Unfortunately, what has long existed in more developed countries is coming to Portugal.
Little can be done, I admit, but what would have been possible may not have been done:
(i) control of entry into schools by searching those who enter, even if it is by sampling,
(ii) self-regulation of the media (which already does so for politically sensitive matters and other types of crimes, avoiding giving a stage and giving ideas),
(iii) focuses on teaching focused on these types of problems, which are more priority and urgent than others that are more fashionable in Citizenship classes,
(iv) greater focus by families on their children, not so much on taking them to extracurricular activities, but on talking to them and being aware of anything that could encourage deviant behavior,
(v) limiting minors’ access to social networks and violent games.
Unfortunately I’m not very optimistic. Over the centuries, Humanity has been solving problems to see others born.
Now they are those that result from unstructured societies and intermediate bodies, from the typical isolation of “lonely crowds” that David Riesman sensed and theorized in the 1950s.
We are entering a phase with unknown dangers for which we are not prepared. But we have to prepare to reduce them. This is a mission for everyone. And we all probably won’t be enough.
THE PRAISE
To the President of the Republic for saying the obvious, but it is not easy: governing by twelfths until 2026 is unacceptable, or there will be an approved budget or elections in less than 6 months.
As I’ve been saying, the “chicken game” can be fatal. And now there is no longer the misconception that a budget can be rejected without early elections.
And the rules of the game are clear. Listen or read what the Minister of Parliamentary Affairs said: “We know that we do not have an absolute majority in Parliament and, therefore, we are available, more than available, we are interested in talking, in negotiating and in giving in where we need to give in so that we can have an approved Budget”.
But there is a limit: “When I say giving in where necessary, there is a limit that is very simple, which is when we let the Government’s project have its way. It doesn’t make sense if we stop reviewing the Budget.”
READING IS THE BEST MEDICINE
Professor of Criminology at the University of Copenhagen, Keith Howard, asked us the question: “have you noticed that instead of being considered mature adults, they are treated like irresponsible children always in need of protection?”
The result was “Infantilised”, an essential work to understand the causes of this phenomenon and its very serious and dangerous consequences on the psychological, social and political levels.
