Pro Nativa

Pro Nativa started among a group of friends in Aljezur, with Jack Golds as its main founder, who brought the initiative into the Cooperativa Integral da Terra network. The project protects and expands the region's distinctive forests, working mainly across the municipalities of Aljezur, Monchique and Odemira. The team follows rewilding and habitat management principles, close-to-nature forestry and ecological restoration, with particular interest in converting abandoned forest monocultures into native woodland. Services range from consultancy and land mapping to intervention plans and fieldwork itself: timber cutting and extraction, invasive species control, arboriculture, trail creation, post-fire emergency measures, and cork harvesting. Pro Nativa now counts 11 members and operates across dozens of private properties totalling more than 1,000 hectares combined. Projects include Zimbral 4 LIFE, protecting Juniperus navicularis scrubland with Rewilding Sudoeste and co-financed by the EU and the Viridia association; Wilder Mira, removing an abandoned eucalyptus plantation on the Mira river with Mossy Earth; and Recreio do Gaio, converting an abandoned pine plantation into native cork oak woodland for local landowners. Fieldwork often means clearing mats of Carpobrotus, an invasive succulent, and stands of acacia, opening clearings through selective pine thinning to let light reach the ground, and planting to help juniper scrubland and other native habitats recover. The team describes itself on social media as 'the rewilders of the south-west', documenting restoration work across a coastline shaped by decades of eucalyptus and pine monoculture and growing wildfire risk.