We cut 1000s of trees to save this rare forest

We are cutting down thousands of these abandoned eucalyptus trees that are a plague on the fire safety and the ecology of the Iberian Peninsula. And we are turning these abandoned plantations into something more like this. A wilder, thriving native woodland that is maximizing its potential as an ecosystem. A forest that retains water better, is building up soil, is full of plant diversity such as wonderful flowers, climbers and mosses. And of course, is home to a varied wildlife population that has all the conditions it needs to thrive. So in this video today, we are going to get into the nitty-gritty of why we are cutting down so many trees. How we're achieving this without destroying the whole place. How much of the cost we recovered by selling the wood. And taking a look at an amazing 28-year-old project that did exactly what we want to do here and saw incredible results. And also how this project, this intervention here, has led us down a path to something much bigger. The creation of our fourth rewilding hub. The Wilder Mira. Complete with its own team full of ambition, a variety of projects and also our brand new rewilding reserve. So we have a few years of developments to cover here. But before we get to all of that, I think it is important to understand what is going wrong here with all these eucalyptus. And for that, I'm joining Teresa, one of our ecologists, who wanted to take me on what might be the most depressive forest tour I've ever been on. So this is not a forest. Let's establish that right now. The way the conventional silviculture slash intensive silviculture plants eucalyptus in Portugal is by not allowing any of the native biodiversity, flora, everything to exist in the land where we have eucalyptus, which is massive for the scale of Portugal. So we have first how they start the eucalyptus plantations. They terrace, they do crazy earthworks on slopes. Even in Portugal, we have a very slopey country and they will make these terraces with really heavy machinery that completely destroy, rip apart the soil. Then, yeah, of course, they plant eucalyptus only. And nowadays they are even using fertilizer for trees. So this is kind of intensive agriculture, just with landing plants. The eucalyptus problem in the Iberian Peninsula runs deep and is the source of much debate, which I don't have time to cover today. So I'll summarize the whole situation by highlighting five very obvious problems. First, we have the extent of this coverage, with it being the dominant forest type in the country now, which, based on some rough data I looked at, makes Portugal probably the world leader in pulp production per square kilometer that is derived from non-native species. Then we have the aggressive use of the soil that Tereza was referring to, and that is incredibly short-sighted. But also the fact that these eucalyptus don't really form proper soil themselves. Eucalyptus litter with pieces of bark and so on is only degrading mechanically because we are not in the area where the eucalyptus is natural. This means that here are no microorganisms destroying the litter and forming earth. In these areas of the natural vegetation, here's a sequence of succession from the rock growth stand until the cork oak forest, we have for all these litter microorganisms which are transforming this into earth. So an autochthonous forest is always a stand where we have living beings, like trees, which are forming soil because 50% of the value of a forest is the soil. With this lack of soil creation and the aggressive soil erosion comes reduced infiltration of rainwater into the already depleted aquifers, meaning that instead it rushes into the streams, which reduces stream depth and affects turbidity, which in turn impacts species that need clear and cool streams to thrive. In our area, this includes species of fish native only to this Mira river system, which used to be abundant but are now facing extinction and which we are hoping to help with our various projects. And then we have the fires, such as the ones raging across Portugal and Spain this summer. They have real consequences, loss of forests, loss of homes, livelihoods and even deaths. We witnessed the destruction firsthand the year we started Mossy Earth, when we planted trees in the ashes after a summer of wildfires that killed more than 100 people. It's serious stuff. Eucalyptus forests contribute to this problem in a variety of ways, including their large vertical and horizontal continuum of biomass, that is drier than in the native forests. And as mentioned by Udo, the leaf litter doesn't decompose, leading to really complicated ground fire. Then we have the highly combustible oils from the trees themselves, that make them burn a bit faster, and the large bark peels that fly off and spread the fires far and wide, much faster than any native forest ever could. These places are a standing matchbox. And then, of course, we have the fact that no species here ever evolved to live in such a forest, meaning that these places are severely deficient in biodiversity, and this next example really makes that clear. Meet Claudia and Udo, two botanists that Matt and Tiago met a few years ago while looking for rewilding project opportunities in the Mirre region. And around two decades ago, they did something really interesting with a plot of abandoned eucalyptus. This is how it looked then, and this is how it looks now. What used to be a lifeless patch of eucalyptus, with only 32 recorded species of plant, is now a diverse forest, slowly maturing towards a proper cork oak forest typical of this region, and already home to more than 320 species of plant. I mean, you can't make this stuff up. This is the wonderful and unique orchids and the small flowering plants. It is the euphorbias, the mosses, and the lichens, the strawberry trees, and the tree heather, and of course some lovely edible fungi. It's nature in all its amazing expressions. To see the results so quickly was absolutely amazing for us because we were counting, yes, that the nature will help us to develop all the vegetation on the plot, but that it is so quickly recovering, that was really for us a big surprise. I must say it was really cool to see this place so well recovered and so diverse, but the key thing for us is that this botanical transformation was really carefully documented by two people who know their stuff when it comes to plants, allowing us to formulate a solid hypothesis on how to fix large areas affected by this problem of old and unproductive abandoned eucalyptus plantations, because all they did was dig up the eucalyptus while minimizing the damage to any native species, and then make sure they didn't come back. Nature did the rest of the work. So, based on this and their knowledge of the problem, Matt asked Dudo for some advice on where to start looking for a potential project. He then sent me some maps, and the first map that I opened, I started looking, I zoomed in, right slap bang in the middle of that map was my house, so I thought, wow, this is where I've got to start. Right over the hill behind his house, Matt met Sandra, who owns most of this land here along the Mirror River, which we believe has the potential to become an important wildlife corridor in what is a rather unprotected global biodiversity hotspot. And when we met Sandra, right away we knew we had found the ideal first partner for such a project. Almost everywhere I've ever ridden horses since childhood, civilization has always encroached upon us and everything has gotten more paved, the roads have been paved, the trails have been destroyed, and everywhere I went riding, there was always less and less space to go riding in, and we were more and more limited. And when I found this land, and I knew I could protect it, I thought, this piece I'm going to keep intact. No one is going to cement anything here or pave any of these trails or encroach on this nature in any way. So, it's safe. Sandra runs a ranch here, home to many happy horses, and I think we couldn't have been more lucky because she needed no convincing whatsoever to let us help her rewild her land. And it turned out that the land itself was also a rather unique place, where remnants of the diverse native forest are mixed with an abandoned eucalyptus plantation that limits its ecological potential, making it the ideal place for intervention. So, before we get into the actual project, I just wanted to give you a quick apology for the lack of videos on this main Mossy Earth YouTube channel. Of course, we've had pretty much weekly videos on the Mossy Earth Field Notes channel, but on here, you've only gotten four stories from me in the last eight or nine months. And, of course, I got a good excuse. My dad died in April, and my son, this little guy here, he was born in July, and in the 100 days or so between these two big life events, I filmed many updates for you. But, yeah, since he was born, I've just been trying to enjoy that for a bit and, you know, really focus on him and on Yulia as well. But I've started to script and to write, including this story that you are watching right now, and you can expect many more updates coming your way the rest of the year. And, yeah, this all has a bit of a knock-on effect. Fewer videos, fewer members, less budget for rewilding. So, our budget is a bit tighter than we'd like. So, if you're ever looking for a rather opportune timing to become a Mossy Earth member, if you've been on the fence for a while, I would say this is a pretty good moment. So, if you are considering it, then please become a member at mossy.earth. As usual, your money will go towards supporting all kinds of amazing rewilding projects that bring nature back to our landscape in all its, you know, wonderful variety of shapes, forms, across all kinds of amazing ecosystems. But now, let's get back to cutting trees to save a forest. So, after getting everything in order, it was time to get the paperwork done. Thank you, Sandra. Appreciate it. Cool. Yeah, the land behind us. Down with it. Down with the eucalyptus. And then, we were ready to get cracking, which, at the beginning of any project, always involves collecting lots of data. Starting, of course, with getting a good map. Something that we generally do using our drone, which, in this location, can get tricky because of how steep the hills are here. So, these yellow bits are the higher areas, and the blue is the lower section near the river. And what we did last night, after a lot of troubleshooting, was that we planned a mission that actually follows this elevation profile. You can see the drone right there. It's following this line. And if you look at it from the side, you'll see that these lines actually follow the elevation profile. By stitching hundreds of these photos together, we created a detailed orthophoto mosaic of the land that will be quite useful in tracking long-term changes. Then, to mix this with some data on the species diversity, we contracted Udo and Claudia to go and survey the land. Maybe the biggest particularity of the place is that we have in only 40 hectares five different types of native forest on one spot. There are two different types of native forests along the river. So, it's a gallery forest on one hand with elders, and on the other hand with ashes. So, where it is closer to the river, we have the elder forest, and then the ash forest a bit more up. On the slopes, we have on the humid areas or on the pied-du-mont, the oak stands with different types of oaks. And on the upper areas on the slope in direction of the ridge, we have the cork oak stands. And then we have a third expression with the olive cork oak forest, the wild olive cork oak forest, sorry, on the most sunny sides where the slope is south-facing. It is fascinating to see just how many interesting plants you can find here in just a few hours. But then, there are also the mammals and the birds quietly taking advantage of this place, hidden away from our prying gaze. We found foxes, badgers, boar, hares, and beach martins, as well as song thrushes and woodcocks. And in the river, even the occasional otter or terrapin. But also, what became clear in these surveys is that the abandoned eucalyptus are limiting the native forest here through shade and direct competition for water and nutrients. In terms of timings, we agreed to work with Sandra at the end of 2023. In early 2024, we hired Teresa to manage the Wilder Mirror rewilding hub as a whole, as well as Flora to focus on aquatic invasives and the marine side of things. Then, in the spring, we signed the contract with Sandra and the first cutting tests were done with a specialist contractor called Pronativa in September. By December, we had also collected a lot of seed from the land and started a native plant nursery in collaboration with the municipality. Then, at the start of 2025, we hired João to focus on the fauna and the monitoring technologies, as well as Francisco, who is focusing on the flora side of things, the GIS systems, and running the plant nursery with the municipality. And that was our team, set up for this rewilding hub, so it was finally time to kick things off for this project. We divided the project area in these segments here and decided that the best would be for Pronativa to start with the complex arborism work in the riparian gallery. This is the most logical place to start because a healthier riparian gallery will mean more shade and a cooler and more humid microclimate. This will allow the forest to retain more water and provide the best refuge for animals in the summer, which also helps with seed dispersion. Also, the species here, such as the alder and the ash, are deciduous and faster growing, which means they build soil much faster compared with the cork oak, which is evergreen. Now, these areas here are quite sensitive, so to minimize the damage here, Jack and his team from Pronativa have to do some acrobatic feats in order to cut the eucalyptus in smaller segments. Doing this and controlling the fall of these segments will minimize the impact on the growing trees and the understory, but it is no easy feat. Basically, we climb the tallest tree and use that as our anchor point, and then from there we can swing across and do the other trees around it and take them down piece by piece or attach a tag line and pull them from a higher point. And then when all the smaller trees or surrounding trees are done, then we can climb back up and take the anchor out like Jack is going to do now on this one. And that's the trickiest bit because of course you're not anchored. Yeah, this is the tricky bit, where you have to go up, take the cambium saver, which is the two rings that our ropes go through, take that off and then move his anchor down as he comes down and then cut the tree at the same time. Bit by bit, over the course of a few months in the spring, the results started to accumulate. The wood gets cut and then pulled up to a small road using a forest winch, then it gets stacked onto the forwarder and driven across to another site, where a truck will pick it up. So that is what progress looks like, and I must say that, you know, I would usually never look at a huge pile of logs of cut trees and feel like it's a good thing, but here seeing all of these eucalyptus removed from that beautiful native forest just feels really great and it's really starting to add up. During this period, Jack and his team also helped train our team of João, Teresa and Francisco, who will eventually oversee seasonal workers in the cutting of the easier sections of this project in the coming years. But the work doesn't stop after the cutting, because the eucalyptus is a stubborn tree. It coppices back with vigor, ready to start all over again, and this is something we have to fight, of course. So we are going to test four different methods. One is the most simple one, consistent cutting, so we're going to cut the re-sprouting at different time intervals and we're going to try it both by hand and with an axe to deal with the buds. Second one should be tarping. It's about covering the stump with an opaque material so light doesn't come in and it stops re-sprouting. A third one we're considering is fungi inoculation on the stumps, which are still alive. The fungi, we're not expecting that it kills the stump right away, but should help drain the energy, and then we associate with cutting. And the last one we're thinking of could be herbicide application. If it's very precise, it can be the case for it, but we're still studying formulas that could make sense. Two other ideas we have are to use a chainsaw debarking attachment or a stump grinder, but please add any additional ideas in the comments. And at the end of the cutting season, we collected and sold 154 cubic tons of wood, taken away in a couple of truckloads. And to achieve this, in total, this project has cost us 97,261.61 euros. And that includes all the one-time expenses associated with it being a pilot project, as well as some equipment and training, which we will be able to use in future projects. So it isn't all just for the cutting, but it doesn't include the salaries for our team here, or the time that Matt has spent setting up these projects in this region, because that is spread over a lot of projects. And how much did we get for that? You are wondering now? Well, we got 9,061 euros, to which we still have to deduct 2,772 for transport. So yeah, it is truly only possible to make a meager profit from eucalyptus if you treat it like an intensive crop and treat the landscape, the soil, and the biodiversity like a disposable industrial component. So this project really was the start of something much, much bigger for us. This team that we have set up is working across a wide variety of ecosystems in this large landscape-level project that we've launched. And we've also bought another property. We've found this really interesting opportunity to buy a cattle ranch and convert it into a rewilding reserve. And that will be the story of the next update for the Wilder Mira Hub. So in a few weeks, you can expect a video about tree planting in Iceland. And after that, we'll get back to the Mira to talk about these projects that we're setting up and this rewilding reserve. But as usual, the thing that supports our work, that makes everything possible, are our Mossy Earth members, our membership base. And yeah, if you would like to become a part of that, then please consider becoming a member at mossy.earth. And if you're already a member and you'd like to support this project further, we are looking to gather some additional funds for our field team here. So you can go into your account in the fund extra and yeah, you should be able to make some contributions to our field team. Until next time. Cheers!