The public forest management company Florestagal has been without a president for more than a year and with the rest of the board in management for more than two years.
The company, based in Figueiró dos Vinhos and created after the 2017 fires, has been without a president for more than a year, after José de Jesus Gaspar resigned in January 2025.
The remaining board of directors – members Cândida Pestana and Maria Azevedo e Silva – remain in office, despite their mandate ending in 2023, and the company has been under management since then.
Questioned by the Lusa agency, the Ministry of Agriculture and the State Secretariat for Forestry did not provide any response or explanation as to the reason for the delay in appointing a new board of directors.
According to that company’s activity report for the first quarter of 2025, José de Jesus Gaspar submitted his resignation from his position in January of that year, making his resignation effective on February 28 of the same year.
José de Jesus Gaspar had taken over the reins of that company that owns thousands of hectares of forest in the national territory in June 2023, having been, at the time, the third president of Florestalgal in the space of five years.
In the activity plan for the 2025/2027 three-year period, published in December 2024, Florestagal noted that the board of directors had been in management since December 2023, “no management contracts for the three-year period under analysis having been concluded”.
“Nor are there program contracts or public service provision contracts that contain specific guidelines on the strategy and/or objectives to be achieved”.
The plan was published a month before José de Jesus Gaspar resigned from his position.
Previously, Florestatgal was chaired by forestry engineer Rui Gonçalves, who was fired in October 2022, just over a year after taking office, following the publication of an opinion article in the newspaper Público, at the end of September, in which he made several criticisms of the combat system, pointing to the “uselessness” that structural prevention assumed in fighting the flames in the Serra da Estrela fire, as well as problems of lack of coordination in fighting the fire, with “too many agents” in the land.
The first leader of that public company was the former socialist deputy José Miguel Medeiros, who was in charge of the company until 2021, when João Matos Fernandes, then Minister of the Environment, chose not to reinstate him to the position.
Florestatgal, based in Figueiró dos Vinhos, was created after the major fires of 2017, from an existing company, Lazer e Floresta, ‘inheriting’ its assets.
According to its website, the company has around 15,600 hectares spread across 86 properties in 26 municipalities in mainland Portugal, to which are added around 6,900 hectares in integrated landscape management areas, which are under its responsibility.
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