Galicia's government urged to overhaul forest fire policies

The Plataforma por un Monte Galego con Futuro, a coalition of 70 environmental, agro‑livestock and forest groups, called on Thursday for a "radical change" in the Xunta de Galicia's environmental and forest policies to stop wildfires becoming a "perpetual chain". The platform condemned the current strategy as overly focused on extinguishing fires, describing the high‑risk fire‑season plan as "nefarious, negligent and improvised" and highlighting that about 800 hectares had already burned this summer.

It also pointed to chronic understaffing of the regional fire‑prevention service (SPIF), noting no new permanent posts since 2026 and reliance on external brigades hired through SEAGA. The groups demanded the creation of a single public forest‑fire service directly managed by the Xunta, an immediate restoration programme for burned areas to curb soil erosion, a suspension of hunting and fishing in border zones to allow regeneration, a decisive push for structural policies, and an indefinite moratorium on planting eucalyptus and other fire‑prone species with a gradual removal programme.