Students from Castro Elementary School in a reforestation action in Trofa

REN - Redes Energéticas Nacionais, in a partnership with the City Council of Trofa and Quercus, is promoting a reforestation action with around 100 students from the sixth grade of Castro Elementary School, on 29 March. This initiative marks the beginning of the reforestation of the Electricity Transmission Line corridor, which goes through the municipality of Trofa.

Under the motto 'Together We Plant Tomorrow', the programme includes a short presentation by REN and Quercus at Castro Elementary School, where students and teachers will get a few tips on the importance of biodiversity and technical instructions about planting trees.

Afterwards, students, teachers and officers from the Municipality of Trofa, from REN and from Quercus will participate in a reforestation action near Monte de S. Gens (S. Gens Avenue) to plant around 500 trees of native species out of the 27,700 of trees to be planted along the same Electricity Transmission Line corridor.

For Sérgio Humberto, Mayor of Trofa, 'this is a joint initiative that seeks to promote and preserve nature and biodiversity in the Municipality of Trofa. This activity thus seeks to raise the local population's awareness regarding the importance of preserving local resources. For this reason we believe that this opportunity can and should also serve as an anchor for projects that seek to regulate the forest area and which promote fostering the natural value inherent to our land'.

João Gaspar, responsible for REN's Easements and Assets area, considers that 'throughout the past few years, REN has sought to adapt the vegetation in the corridors, to promote the creation of a sustainable ecosystem and to incentivize a more active intervention by the owners in their lands, which in turn will result in better management of the corridors, in the prevention of fires and in the creation of economic value for the owners of the lands'.

In the last six years, through the actions of corridor repurposing, REN planted around 750 thousand trees in over 1,500 ha, which represents about 400 trees a day. The company's goal is to reach the milestone of one million trees planted by 2018.

REN is a member of Movimento ECO - Empresas Contra os Fogos (ECO Movement - Companies Against Fires), a civil society movement supported by the Government, with the involvement of several Portuguese companies and which aims to promote the prevention of forest fires and to raise public awareness regarding risk behaviour.