Cork tree alert
There are four young cork trees on our property. They are seedlings and they stand in our way: if we leave them, we’ll have to construct our bedroom around a tree. Not very convenient….
Cork trees are an endangered species in Portugal. Because of frequent wildfires many of the cork trees in this country were destroyed. The government has now put up a protection plan, to give these special trees a future. This means that we need permission to cut down our four cork trees. The man we hired to do this work won’t start before we show him the written and stamped permission. Fines for illegally cutting trees are huge!
So we ask for a permit with the ICNF. This requires filling out many forms, and the trees must be marked with white paint for the Inspector… As we can not travel at this moment, due to Covid-19 restrictions, we have asked Rodrigo to come and help. He takes his bucket and a brush to Vilar and marks the four trees. Easy peasy, right? The appropriate forms are filed with the organization and the procedure has started.
At some point the Inspector of the ICNF is visiting our property to check the trees in person. We are bewildered when we hear his decision: the request has been denied. Reason: the marking of the trees is wrong! The circle on the trees is wrong! The instructions are as follows:
- you number the trees
- you put a cross on the trees
- you put a circle on the trees
So the million dollar question is… what went wrong?!? If you know the answer please leave your comment. We will raffle off the good answers with a set of cork coasters….
In the end all turned out well after all. This required some phone calls from the right persons to the right persons, some pressure here and there, and yessss, there was our permit! So this is how things work…