Forests for People

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Cork oak: a unique

agroforestry system

Conceição Ferreira and João Pinho, National Forest Authority, Portugal

he geo-climatic peculiarities of Portugal, located in the

western extreme of Europe, where the Atlantic and the

Mediterranean meet, have allowed for forestry to take on a

particular and pivotal role in the country. Here, you will find vast

areas where the mild temperatures and rainfall regime, favoured

by the Atlantic influence, encouraged the development of intensive

forestry and short-rotation plantations were successfully intro-

duced to supply a very strong pulp and paper industry, for firewood

production and also for soil protection. But you will also find large

areas, in the southern part of the Portuguese mainland, where the

native Mediterranean oak species and its cultural traditions remain.

Shaped by human activity over generations, forests coexist with

agriculture and traditional practices leading to characteristic agro-

forestry-pastoral systems, named ‘montados’, characterized by low

density of trees and agriculture or pasture under canopy. The most

emblematic case is that of the unique cork oak tree.

There are only around 2.5 million hectares of cork

oak forests in the world, located almost entirely in

the Mediterranean countries. There have been trials

to introduce it to other regions, namely the Americas,

Western Asia and Australia, but with limited success.

Portugal has about one third of the total area of the

species distribution. The industry associated with

this non-wood product has developed so well that the

country is the world leader in cork production and cork

products trade. The Portuguese industry supplies over

50 per cent of all cork used in the world. Bottle stoppers

are its main product, as 70 per cent of exports value

come from these items, sustaining the entire chain and

being one of the main sources of income for rural areas

of the Alentejo and Algarve regions, some of the poorest

regions in the country.

Afforestation of agricultural lands with

Quercus suber

(cork oak) is helping to

increase forest coverage in Portugal

Debarking is done manually by highly skilled rural workers

Image: Fernando Lopes