Lima floodplain forest restoration PT Regional scalability plan Case study 12

The plan was developed by Merlin project investigators and the stakeholder council. It was discussed in several meetings aimed at local political decision-makers. Having launched the challenge of developing a regional scalability plan, we brought together technicians and managers to prepare a proposal. The area was delineated, considering opportunities and limitations, a map was submitted for approval to the Protected Area Management Committee. After approval of this proposal, preliminary project work began, presenting and discussing ideas, plans and concrete actions. Through a survey and the draft plan, people and entities that they consider important were invited to make contributions to improve the project. A workshop was held with interested parties where the RSP was presented. This was followed by the delivery of the draft which, after review, gave rise to this document.

With this document we intend to describe the possible scalability of the measures implemented under the MERLIN project, in an increased area, that will involve the Estorãos hydrographic basin, within the Protected Area limits, and the Lima River Special Area of Conservation, within the Ponte de Lima municipality limits.

The RSP aims to be a work guide capable of helping all the intervenient, direct and indirect, to understand the project, to assume responsibilities and to become aware of the importance of the planned actions, towards its proper execution, applying the ‘good practice guidance’ learned from MERLIN, that could be applied in future restoration actions.

It's targeted to public administration, like the Alto Minho municipalities community or the Northern Regional Coordination and Development Commission, private companies and chains with high power of regional intervention, as well as the landowners.

 Francisco Lourenço Cerqueira Correia (Ponte de Lima municipality), Irene Trigueiro Lourenço (Ponte de Lima municipality), Vera Lúcia dos Santos Henriques (Ponte de Lima municipality), Estêvão Portela-Pereira (University of Lisbon) and Patricia María Rodríguez-González (University of Lisbon)