The Council of Ministers authorized this Tuesday, on the proposal of the Ministry for Ecological Transition and Demographic Challenge (MITECO), to allocate 622,321 euros to Asturias to restore forest masses in decline or at risk of desertification. The proposal for territorial distribution approved for the autonomous communities is 32 million euros, for submission to the Sectoral Conference on the Environment.
The actions are framed in the Recovery, Transformation and Resilience Plan, in Component 4, dedicated to the “conservation and restoration of ecosystems and their biodiversity”. The modification of hydroclimatic conditions, together with the proliferation of forest pests, is causing a serious deterioration of certain forest ecosystems in Spain, threatening their biodiversity and their natural capacity for regeneration. This situation increases the risk of desertification and ecological degradation, increasing vulnerability to possible forest fires, which requires an urgent and effective response in the context of a climate emergency declared by the Government at the beginning of the legislature.
With this agreement, the Ministry for Ecological Transition and Demographic Challenge (MITECO) reinforces its commitment to forest restoration and strengthening the resilience of public forests against climate change and other risks.
The actions will be developed by the autonomous communities within the framework of their competences and with an investment from Investment 4 of Component 4 of the PRTR: Sustainable Forest Management, which has a total budget of 401 million euros, of which more than 50% has already been transferred. This additional funding package also responds to the recent call by the European Commission to scale up and accelerate the implementation of the Recovery and Resilience Mechanism funds.
The distribution of funds has been made on the basis of the proposals received from the autonomous communities, ensuring the technical feasibility and execution deadlines set by the PRTR, and with a proportional distribution criterion.