ABSTRACT
In Portugal, there is no national policy for urban forest. Street tree management is left to the municipalities that often do not have any street tree regulations or act against their own rules. Recent extreme climate change events such as storms, floods and the dramatic 2017 forest fires, had serious implications on attitudes regarding trees, street trees included, as trees were perceived as responsible for material and human losses. In response to this more or less generalised perception, the Portuguese government enacted a law that severely penalises trees in the vicinity of houses and settlements (The Decree-Law nº 10/2018). Consequently, municipalities took actions to reduce risks arising from trees, which in many cases resulted in abusive and unnecessary tree fells and tree pruning. This chapter addresses the impacts of climate change in the Portuguese forest; discusses the impact of the Decree-Law nº10/2018 in the non-urban forest and its domino effect in the urban forest; and provides a detailed insight into the Decree-Law possible implications in the urban forest and street trees of Porto, a city with an extensive, private and public, tree canopy.
