The Regional Secretariat for Agriculture and Forestry, João Ponte, accompanied by 11th form students from Lagoa Secondary School, participated today in the planting of certified cryptomeria trees. They are sold properly labelled during the Christmas season, evidencing the responsible management of the Azores forest.
 
The “Naturally Legal Christmas Tree” campaign has been promoted by the Regional Secretariat for Agriculture and Forestry, through the Regional Directorate for Forest Resources, since 2010.
 
"The Christmas trees for sale were grown in a sustainably managed forest. These trees are cut because they are not well-adapted or they are oddly shaped; their removal allows the remaining trees to develop properly," said the Regional Director for Forest Resources.
 
Anabela Isidoro also participated in this initiative to plant certified cryptomeria trees. She pointed out that numbered and inviolable labelling of trees for sale during Christmas assures consumers that they come from duly authorised cutting areas, also facilitating the inspection of points of sale.
 
An average of 4,000 labels are placed annually in cryptomeria trees for sale, of which about 1,400 correspond to trees cut in private land.
 
Despite the rain, the participants in this initiative did not give up fulfilling their mission, having planted several cryptomeria trees in land located within the Chão da Macela Forest Reserve, municipality of Lagoa.
 
"We are planting cryptomeria trees during the Christmas season, at a time when many of our public and private forest areas are cut, which is quite normal in cryptomeria forests," Anabela Isidoro stressed, adding that it is the most representative species of forest production in the Azores.
 
Over the last four years, about three million trees have been planted in the archipelago, mostly cryptomeria trees, as well as resinous, hardwood and endemic species.
 
The forest is a noteworthy and structuring element of Azorean landscape, occupying about a third of the archipelago's terrestrial territory.