The Regional Secretary for Agriculture and the Environment stated today in Lajes das Flores that the Government of the Azores has 19 works to support agricultural and forestry activity in the archipelago that are in progress or in the process of being awarded. They represent a total public investment of about three million Euros.
 
Luís Neto Viveiros spoke during a visit to the improvement work of Fonte do Frade - Caldeira da Lomba Rural Road under the Regional Government's statutory visit to the island of Flores. He stressed that "these works, carried out through the Regional Director for Forest Resources, will improve nearly 38 kilometres of rural and forest roads."
 
These roads, which do not include those located in the Agrarian Planning Perimeters under the management of IROA, serve 440 farms and will facilitate the access to 860 hectares of forest.
 
Hence, the Government, through the Regional Directorate for Forest Resources, has just launched two new contract works on Terceira and Santa Maria and will launch another on Pico in the second quarter of 2016. This regional department has about 1,400 kilometres of forest and rural roads throughout the archipelago under its management.
 
On São Miguel, the improvement works of three roads have been concluded, representing an investment of nearly half a million Euros. This year, another six works are expected to be concluded in the municipalities of Nordeste, Velas, S. Jorge and Lajes das Flores.
 
The work of Fonte do Frade - Caldeira da Lomba Rural Road, a public investment of over 400 thousand Euros to be completed by July, will benefit 44 farmers as well as to connect the island's central zone with existing roads and provide the access of the local population to places where the beauty of traditional Azorean landscape is relevant to visitors.
 
Since 2012, the Government of the Azores has already invested 1.5 million Euros in 6.8 kilometres of rural and forest roads on the island of Flores.