CypFire - Barrières vertes de Cyprès Fire: une solution faisable, écologique et économique pour sauvegarder les régions Méditerranéennes 2010-2013

Project of European Transnational Cooperation Programme (P.O. MED), financed by European Funds for Rural Development (FESR)

total funding € 1,330,000, € 210,000 funding IPP

Partners: AAF Regione Siciliana, Comando Corpo Forestale – Servizi Tecnici, Palermo, Italy - IPP Istituto per la Protezione delle Piante, Firenze, Italy - PS Amministrazione Provinciale di Siena, Siena, Italy - ONF Office National des Forêts, Corsica, France - IMELSA Deputation de Valencia, Impulso Economico y Social, Departamento des Arboles Monumentales, Valencia, Spain - AFN Autoridade Florestal Nationalal, Algarve, Portugal - TEI Technological Educational Institute, Crète, Greece -  MGARR Mgarr Kunsill Lokali, Malta - ISA Istituto Superior de Agronomia, Lisbona, Portugal - INRGREF Institut National de Recherches en Génie Rural Eaux et Forets de Tunisie, Ariana, Tunisia - HUJ The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Gerusalemme, Israel  CES Akdeniz University, Antalya, Turkey

General Coordinator: Paolo Raddi, IPP

 

Forest fires are a worldwide problem, particularly plaguing the Mediterranean areas of Europe. Fire fighting needs to be improved and new technical solutions need to be found and implemented. The CypFire project aims to demonstrate that a strip of cypress trees characterized by horizontal foliage can prevent, control and limit the damage caused by fire.

The project makes use of plant material characterized ​within the projects CypMed and MedCypre (Interreg IIIB MedOcc), coordinated by IPP staff. CypFire partners are 6 Espace MED countries (with research units in  Portugal, Spain, France, Greece, Malta and 3 research units in Italy) and  4 Associate countries (Tunisia, Israel, Turkey and Portugal non MED zone).

The project deals with 4 topics: 1. Improving knowledge of methods used for fire control by comparative and critical analysis; 2. Establish the state of the art of new technologies to be implemented to replace those current tools that have provided poor results despite considerable efforts and financial support; 3. Selection of cypress clones with suitable morphophysiological traits for poor flammability, for improved reduction of wind speed during fire outbreak, and for poorly flammable litter composition. The  costs / benefits ratio between the management of cypress vs unattractive and unsustainable artificial fire-break stripes will e also assessed; 4. Adopt an appropriate strategy for the dissemination of achieved results.

The IPP is the project “Acteur Clé” and is responsible for financial management, evaluation of the impacts and effects of cypress adoption as a sustainable fire-breaker. The success of the project will be evaluated by assessing the technical feasibility of this innovative cypress management, and the impacts on rural economy, on the protection and conservation of the environment, and on landscape improvement.