LIFE LINES and CIMAC produce a document with proposals for ecological solutions to promote biodiversity in the marginal strips of roads, making road safety, the defense of the forest against wildfires and the conservation of biodiversity compatible.

The LIFE LINES project emerged with the aim of contributing to the creation of a Green Infrastructure that promotes refuges for plants and animals, and the safe movement of fauna along linear infrastructures, such as road verges. In this way the ecosystem services are enhanced and the negative impact of roads on biodiversity may be reduced. The challenge that the project team undertook is framed in the legal provisions and conditions for the management of road verges in Portugal. Currently, the management of road verges aims at maintaining the landscape integration of roads, ensuring the stabilization of slopes and road safety (removal of obstacles to circulation and visualization of the road and signaling), and preventing the ignition and propagation of wildfires within the scope of the National Plan for the Defense of the Forest Against Fire.

In order to reconcile the different functions to explore on road verges, the LIFE LINES team in collaboration with CIMAC (Comunidade Intermunicipal dos Municípios do Alentejo Central) produced the document entitled “Proposal of ecological solutions to promote Biodiversity in road verges ”. This proposal aims at promoting a regime of interventions in road verges, reconciling the functions they play in terms of road safety, defense of the forest against fire, and conservation of biodiversity, especially framed to the landscape context of Alentejo Central.

The “Proposal of ecological solutions for the promotion of Biodiversity in road verges” was presented to the Municipalities of Central Alentejo on December 9, 2021, in a zoom meeting. The meeting was attended by representatives of the LIFE LINES project, CIMAC, Portuguese (Nature Conservation Agency (ICNF) and Forestry Technical Offices from several Municipalities in Alentejo Central.

Access here to the document “Proposal of ecological solutions for the promotion of Biodiversity in road verges”.