About 200 Century-Old Holm Oaks Felled Near Elvas Go to Prosecutors: the Permits, Fines and 25-Year Freeze the Law Sets

About 200 adult holm oaks (azinheiras), most of them more than a century old and in good health, have been cut to the stump across roughly 90 hectares in the municipality of Elvas, in Portalegre district. The Guarda Nacional Republicana (GNR, the rural police) said in a statement on Friday that its nature protection service, the Serviço de Proteção da Natureza e do Ambiente (SEPNA), found them on 10 November during a forest patrol.

No one has been detained. The GNR drew up an official report (auto de notícia) for the crime of danos contra a natureza (damage against nature), sent it to the Ministério Público (Public Prosecutor's Office) at the Elvas court, and asked the Instituto da Conservação da Natureza e das Florestas (ICNF, the nature and forests institute) to assess the damage. It has named no suspect. The 16 arrests the GNR announced the same week concern a separate case in the north, over sewage sludge spread on farmland.

Every holm and cork oak needs a permit

Holm and cork oaks (sobreiros) are protected by Decreto-Lei n.º 169/2001, last amended in 2023. Under Article 3(1), cutting or uprooting either species needs authorisation, whether in a stand or alone in a field. The main exception is thinning under an approved forest management plan, which needs only advance notice. Article 9(2) requires each tree to be marked in indelible paint before felling.

Pruning is controlled too. Article 15 allows it only with authorisation, only to improve the tree's productive qualities, and only between 1 November and 31 March, a season that has just opened. Article 17(4) bans any operation that mutilates or damages these trees.

Requests go to the ICNF through its RUBUS online service, which needs a validated NIF (tax number) and a login through Autenticação.Gov or the tax portal. Article 9 sets a decision deadline of 45 or 60 days, depending on the request; if none arrives in time, the request counts as approved.

Fines, replanting and a 25-year freeze

Article 21 still sets the fines (coimas) in escudos. At the fixed euro conversion rate, felling holm oaks without authorisation costs about 50 euros to 74,820 euros; for cork oaks the ceiling is about 149,640 euros. Article 22 also lets the government confiscate the machinery and the wood obtained, and bar the offender from public aid for up to two years.

Where a stand has been illegally cut, Article 23 requires it to be replanted with the same species, at the offender's cost, within a deadline of no more than two years. Article 5 bans, for 25 years from the felling, building, subdivision, reshaping the ground or its vegetation, and any new farming, industrial or tourism activity.

Those 25-year rules apply to a "povoamento" (stand), which Article 1 defines by density: for large trees with an average girth above 130 cm at chest height, at least 10 per hectare. The GNR has not said how the 200 trees were spread across the 90 hectares, so it is not yet clear whether the Elvas site met that threshold.

What landowners should do

If your plot has cork or holm oaks, treat every one as protected and do not let a contractor clear, fell or prune them before authorisation arrives. If you are buying rural land, ask whether oaks were removed in the last 25 years, because the freeze stays with the land. Our report on registering rural land with BUPi explains how to map your boundaries.

To report suspected illegal felling, call the GNR's SOS Ambiente e Território line on 808 200 520 (24 hours) or email [email protected].