Murcia unveils multi-million euro forest rescue

Murcia’s forests are in triage mode. The region is not talking about a normal dry spell or a tidy replanting program — it is trying to stop a long drought from turning weakened pine woods into dead fuel. That is the point of the news here. On May 5, regional environment chief Juan María Vázquez said Murcia had already spent €16.7 million of a €20.9 million two-year plan and intervened on 9,167 hectares, with more work centered on hard-hit areas like Lorca. ### Why is Murcia doing this now? Because the damage is no longer hypothetical. Murcia says the drought episode — which it ties to the worst dry stretch in 64 years, lasting into winter 2025 — has accelerated forest decline, especially in pine stands, and pushed tree mortality sharply higher. The regional government’s current estimate is stark: about 3 million trees dead. ### What does “forest rescue” actually mean? Basically, not mass reforestation first. The work starts with emergency forestry: removing dead or dying trees, cutting down combustible material, and controlling insects that attack stressed woods, including borers and defoliators. The logic is simple — a drought-hit forest can slide into a fire problem, a pest problem, and a biodiversity problem all at once. ### How big is the plan? The official budget for 2025 and 2026 is €20,919,572.84. Murcia split that into about €6.72 million in 2025 and €14.20 million in 2026, which tells you something important: this is not a one-off cleanup after a bad summer. The bigger push lands in 2026, when the region wants to accelerate on-the-ground intervention. ### How much has already been done? By March, Murcia said it had completed work on 7,531 hectares since 2025 and expected to reach 11,459 hectares by the end of 2026. By May 5, that had risen to 9,167 hectares, or close to 80% of the measures planned under the program so far. So this is not just an announcement — crews are already deep into execution. ### Why does Lorca matter so much? Lorca is one of the priority municipalities because the drought hit its forest mass hard and because the area matters for fire protection and landscape resilience. Murcia says it is putting €3.28 million into Lorca during 2025-2026 to act on nearly 1,600 hectares. Vázquez toured the Peña Rubia viewpoint area, where adaptive silviculture work is already underway. ### Is this only Murcia money? No — a meaningful chunk of the 2026 push is tied to emergency projects financed with Next Generation EU funds. Murcia says those projects, launched at the end of 2025, total about €8.30 million and run through June 2026 across a long list of municipalities, including Lorca, Totana, Bullas, Cieza, Caravaca de la Cruz, and Moratalla. ### How wide is the damage beyond the treated land? This is the catch. The treated area is large, but the affected area is much larger. Murcia says the drought has hit more than 36,000 hectares. So even if the region reaches 11,459 hectares of intervention by year-end, that still leaves a lot of stressed woodland outside the current rescue footprint. ### What’s the real goal here? Not to restore Murcia’s forests to some old baseline overnight. The real goal is to keep damaged woods alive enough — and clean enough — to avoid cascading losses from fire, pests, erosion, and biodiversity collapse while the climate gets harsher. In plain English, Murcia is trying to stop drought damage from becoming permanent forest loss.