The Council of Ministers, on the proposal of the Ministry for the Ecological Transition and the Demographic Challenge (MITECO), approved on Tuesday two draft laws to establish the basic legal framework for forest firefighters and forestry and environmental agents and ensure equivalent working and professional conditions throughout the country.
Both groups play an undeniable role in the defense and protection of the natural environment. Every year the fire season is prolonged and the virulence of these is greater due to the climate emergency. It is necessary to be prepared 365 days a year to prevent and fight the fire. The two normative instruments underpin the commitment of the Government in the prevention and fight against fires, as well as in the care, defense and protection of the natural environment.
After their approval in the Council of Ministers, both texts are processed in the Congress of Deputies. “With these provisions we fulfill a commitment made from the electoral program, but also from the desire to have a relationship between the administration and these groups that allows to guarantee the maximum dignity in the exercise of the functions so important that they perform for environmental protection and, therefore, the protection of citizens,” said the Vice President of the Government in a press conference.
FOREST FIREFIGHTERS
In the case of forest firefighters, the rule will regulate as a basic rule the conditions in which the more than 20,000 professionals who provide an essential service and of social interest in our country carry out their work. It will do so regardless of the specific legal and labor nature that each case has.
The main regulated aspects are the express and individualized legal recognition of the category or figure of forest firefighter at the national level; the definition of functions that in addition to extinction can, complementarily and where appropriate, include prevention, detection, surveillance, work of information to the population, as well as support to contingencies in the natural and rural environment; prevention of occupational risks and legal defense of the collective. It also recognizes the application of the Royal Decree on the Early Retirement of Firefighters in the service of public administrations and agencies.
FOREST AND ENVIRONMENTAL AGENTS
There are different bodies, scales, specialties in the territorial structure, which is reflected in the existence of different forestry and environmental agents dependent on different public administrations in the national territory, such as the environmental agents of the scale of autonomous bodies attached to MITECO or those dependent on the autonomous communities. This has led to the development of different regulations on this group, made up of about 6,000 professionals. Despite the fact that there were already basic State regulations applicable in the field of the environment, the existing divergence in the organizational and functional models makes it necessary to approve the basic framework of forestry and environmental agents at national level.
This regulation strengthens the consideration of forestry and environmental agents as special administrative police and judicial police in the generic sense. In addition, they will have for all legal purposes the character of agents of the authority.
The normative instrument that has been approved today establishes the basic legal framework in which the status and tasks to be performed by forestry and environmental agents are defined. Among them are tasks of custody and monitoring of nature, support of environmental management, and assistance and collaboration in emergencies and civil protection in the natural environment.