Portugal wants EU cash to pay for firefighting goats – POLITICO

Portugal’s minister for agriculture has a burning desire for the next EU long-term budget: more goats.

José Manuel Fernandes wants Brussels to help pay shepherds to let goats, cows and sheep graze on shrubs in areas at high risk of wildfires — a low-tech approach that experts say the EU has been ignoring for too long. Portugal and some regions in Spain are already running their own programs.

“We are using our national money, but it is work that we are doing for all the European Union,” Fernandes told POLITICO at an informal meeting of ministers in Dublin, arguing that preventing fires helps lower carbon emissions.