Montado, Cultural Landscape

October 2020 - we drove south from Lisbon to Vila nova Milfontes. We took the occasion and took the most scenic roads through the cork forests of montado. We were driving for a few hours and all we saw was dry plantations with cork trees. I am positive, that if it should become a WHS we passed the core zone at some point or another. I would be in favor of seeing this tremendous amount of cork shaping the landscape being recognized. 

I visited this tentative WHS in July 2020. The Montado Cultural Landscape is all about cork and is a unique agro-forestry ecosystem found only in the Mediterranean region. It is a savannah-like woodland of cork oak and holm oak trees (Quercus suber and Quercus rotundifolia) and it is also a cultural landscape requiring active management to ensure its continued existence. Cork/holm oaks are only found in South Western Europe and North Western Africa, with Portugal alone holding one third of the world species distribution. Moreover, Portugal is the world's leading cork producer, accounting for over 60% of the volume of world exports.

With variations in the territory, the Montado landscape is suitable for several uses, depending on the density of trees that seek to adapt to the harsh conditions unlike no other tree (except the recently introduced Stone Pine tree), frequently dominated by skeletal soils with sparse organic matter and the Mediterranean, Continental or Atlantic climate influences. By definition the Montado is a constructed landscape, shaped over time exclusively by human activity, that mankind has generated and manages in a unique manner, in order to guarantee its sustainability. However, this system is under numerous pressures: rural abandonment, tree mortality, depreciation of cork market value, overgrazing as well as climate change.

According to the information on the UNESCO website, the Montado system occupies “a significant part of the Alentejo region, large areas of the Tagus Valley and of Beira Baixa interior, as well as and the mountain …