bp Portugal supports LIPOR's Native Forest Tree Maintenance Program

As part of its purpose to re-imagine energy for people and the planet, and integrated it into its sustainability model, bp aims at promoting biodiversity in the countries where it operates, namely through actions that have a positive impact on the rehabilitation, maintenance and improvement of that same biodiversity. It is in this context that bp Portugal has supported LIPOR's Native Forest Tree Maintenance Programme, "Metro Quadrado", which aims to maintain native forest areas undergoing an ecological rehabilitation process on the banks of the Leça River. 

This support to the "Square Meter" program has enabled the requalification of a 3-hectare area of riparian forest, located in Moreira, in the Municipality of Maia, so as to transform the local landscape, adapt the space to climate change, reinforce the existing water line and create a riparian forest and gallery.

So far, the requalification has consisted of the planting of different native vegetative strata, about 21 different species, integrating other elements in the riparian forest, including small more artificial sections, such as wooden or stone walls, paths and shelters. These techniques promote the ideal conditions to stimulate biodiversity, being properly adapted to the extreme phenomena of climate change.

For Sílvia Barata, President of bp Portugal, "the support to LIPOR's Square Meter program materializes, in Portugal, one of the objectives of bp's strategy, which is based on the promotion of biodiversity through actions with a positive impact in the countries where we operate. To achieve this, we've teamed up with partners like LIPOR that have the necessary competencies to do it where it's most needed and to ensure its correct application. We will continue to do so so that, hectare by hectare, we may contribute to environmental progress and carbon neutrality".

LIPOR will be responsible for maintaining this area in the 4 years following this intervention under its Square Meter Program, knowing that these first years are particularly critical, promoting the survival success rate of the trees installed in the areas. 

For LIPOR, bp's support is of great importance, not only as a lever for the Square Meter program but also because it will allow the interventions to result in the creation of a forest of high ecological value, which is the main goal of our program and of high value for the surrounding ecosystem.

For the Municipality of Maia, the integration of this work in a set of other initiatives that are being developed by the Municipality of Maia, namely as a demonstration site of good practices in the management of water resources to be held by the Leça River Corridor Municipalities Association, is also an added value for the Municipality.