11.02.2020. The University of Évora (Portugal) will host on the 20th and 21^st of February the second meeting of partners of the Iberian Centre for Research and the Fight against Forest Fires (CILIFO), 75% of which is funded by the Interreg VA Spain-Portugal Cross-Border Cooperation Programme – POCTEP (2014-2020).

The objective of this second committee is to hold the technical meetings of the working groups of the project’s activities, in order to analyse what has been developed by each of them. Thus, the attendees called to the conferences are the 15 beneficiaries, technical and financial managers and contact persons of the project that each beneficiary entity considers appropriate. The 15 partners that make up the consortium are

• CAGPDS – Consejería de Agricultura, Ganadería, Pesca y Desarrollo Sostenible de la Junta de Andalucía
• Agencia de Medio Ambiente y Agua de Andalucía
• CSIC-EBD – Agencia Estatal Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas – Estación Biológica de Doñana
• Fundación ONCE para la Cooperación e Inclusión Social de Personas con Discapacidad
• INIA – Instituto Nacional de Investigación y Tecnología Agraria y Alimentaria
• UCA – Universidad de Cádiz
• UCO – Universidad de Córdoba
• UHU – Universidad de Huelva
• AMAL – Comunidad de Intermunicipal do Algarve
• Municipio de Castro Marim
• Municipio de Loulé
• Municipio de Monchique
• Municipio de 
• FINNOVA – Fundación Delegación Fundación Finnova
• UÉVORA – Universidad de Évora

In addition, representatives from the Regional Coordination CCDR-Algarve; the Regional Coordination CCDR-Alentejo; the Regional Coordination Junta de Andalucía (DG. European Funds – Ministry of Economy and Finance); the National Coordination of Spain (Ministry of Finance); and the authorities in the field of forest fires of Spain and Portugal are invited.

CILIFO is a cross-border cooperation project with a budget of 24.6 million euros, of which the European Union (EU) finances a 75%, and an implementation period of three years (2019-2021). With its creation, the aim is to unify protocols and procedures of the Portuguese and Spanish operations, in order to execute more efficiently the prevention and extinction of forest fires. CILIFO, approved by the Interreg POCTEP Programme (2014-2020) Spain-Portugal, is part of the Thematic Objective 5 of the Programme, which promotes adaptation to climate change in all sectors. It also responds to the investment priority, with respect to the POCTEP Programme, 5B: Promoting investment to address specific risks and ensuring adaptation to disasters and developing disaster management systems. One of the objectives of the CILIFO project is to promote the creation of sustainable and quality employment in the area and to reduce the economic cost of fires by creating a rural economy linked to the landscape.