Good year of Laurel germination in the project’s greenhouse

After reaching the 35 000 endemic and native plantas in the greenhouse, an important moment, here comes more good news.

Since we built the Sustainable Laurel Life Project greenhouse that we’ve been dwelling with the difficulty on the germination of some plants. The most difficult results have been the Laurel (until now, we only had two germinations of this specie).

Therefore, this year we have good news: Laurel beds planted are giving excellent results, estimating 5 000 Laurel germinations that will be used on the recovery actions of the Laurel Forest in Serra da Tronqueira.

We hope that the good news continues! See you soon.

SPEA receives 3 new trainees in São Miguel

Since Monday that SPEA can rely on three new trainees. Pep Gallen, Silvia Catalá and Pablo Vivanco will be cooperating with Sustainable Laurel Life Project’s and Priolo’s Environmental Center in the coming months.

Pep Gallen

Pep studied Forest Engineering and came to S.Miguel throught the Eurodyssée program and will be staying until August. Pablo is on a professional course in Forest Services and his coming to SPEA is due to a professional internship that will last until June. Both will be part of the Sustainable Laurel Life Project’s mainly as support in peatland conservation actions and in the greenhouse of endemic plants.

Pablo Vivanco

Silvia Catalá studied Byologie, has been in Azores participating of a study developed by University of the Azores and nowadays collaborates with SPEA has a Eurodyssée trainee in Priolo’s Environmental Center, until August.

Silvia Catalá

SPEA welcomes these new trainees and hopes that their stay in São Miguel and in SPEA contributes to an extremely positive experience to their formation.

Field Trip to the Sustainable Laurel Life Project with good adherence

On the 10th of March, SPEA organized a field trip to the Sustainable Laurel Life Project’s actions; with the purpose of divulge to all the participants the conservation work carried out by this project.

This activity had 19 participants which had the opportunity of spending their morning in contact with nature. The meeting point was in Povoação’s Municipal Garden and at 10am. With a sunny day, the participants started their field trip with a visit to the project’s greenhouse in Lomba do Loução.


In the greenhouse, the project team technician, Filipe Figueiredo, explained all the work that has been developed for the native plants production and the most relevant methodologies applied, from the seeds collection until the germination, and also the plants acclimatization by transferring them to the nursing beds outside of the greenhouse.


The next stop was in Labaçal, in Serra da Tronqueira, where the participants saw the work done on what concerns to the Laurel Forest recovery. Since this was one of the first areas to be intervened during this project, it’s possible to have an idea about the state before and after the intervention.


After this, the participants went to the viewpoint of Serra da Tronqueira where they were given some explanations about the native vegetation that can be seen from that viewpoint and about the invasive plants expansion in the central area of Serra da Tronqueira.


The field trip ended at Priolo’s Environmental Center (PEC), where SPEA’s technician Azucena de la Cruz gave an explanation about the flora and fauna that can be observed in the SPA Pico da Vara/Ribeira do Guilherme, as well as different aspects about Priolo and importance of these endangered habitats.


At the end, remained the promise to participate in more activities and the will of getting to know better the work developed by SPEA in Azores.

The Project’s greenhouse reaches 36 000 plants

For the first time since the construction of the Sustainable Laurel Life Project’s greenhouse, we exceeded the barrier of the 35 000 native plants production.

The production of native plants in the greenhouse, in the previous years, reached 27 000 plants. With this milestone, we increased the number of plants available to plant in the project’s intervention areas.


As usual, the Azorian Heather is the plant with the highest success rate, about 22 000 plants, the Heather follows with 3 710 plants. In adittion, there was an increased success in the germination of other plants, such as the Laurel, the Buckthorn, the Picconia and the Azorean Blueberry, among others.

Unfortunately, we also verified some decrease in the germination of some plants, such as the Faya Tree that has very low germination records.


After two years, since it started at 100%, the Sustainable Laurel Life Project’s greenhouse has been filled with plants that will be replanted in the Natural Forest areas were the project’s intervention takes place.