Javali in Monchique: When Recognition of a Problem Is Not Enough

The damage is visible. The science is clear. Portugal has a plan. The question is whether recognition is being translated into results on the ground.

Walking across the terraces at Raízes da Montanha recently, it was impossible to ignore what had happened. Large areas of established vegetation had been rooted up by Javali — wild boar (Sus scrofa). What had previously been covered ground was left disturbed, broken and substantially bare, and in places so badly rutted that you could easily twist or break an ankle.

We have decided to document the intrusions and gather sufficient evidence so that interested parties can see their impact. However, this will not alter the fact that we are losing, and have already lost, valuable topsoil and resources, which has had a negative impact on our project. The bottom line is that, no matter what we record and discuss, the problem has already had a significant financial and biological impact on the farm.

Understanding the problem and dealing with it must go hand in hand. However, from my perspective as an outsider (estrangeiro), little attention appears to be given to the problem here in Monchique.

This is not simply agricultural damage

It would be easy to describe what we are seeing merely as damage to a farm, but that understates the issue. At Raízes da Montanha, we are attempting to restore and maintain old agricultural terraces using principles increasingly familiar within regenerative land management:

Keep the soil covered; maintain living roots; increase organic matter; slow water down; increase infiltration; reduce erosion.

In a remarkably short period, vegetation that has taken months or years to establish can be disturbed and the soil exposed. At this time of year — summer — another problem arises.

During periods of extreme summer heat and critical wildfire danger, our ability to use machinery to repair substantial areas of damaged ground is constrained. The Javali can therefore disturb the ground at precisely the time when the landowner may be least able to repair it. The soil is subsequently exposed to intense summer conditions and potential wind erosion. Then, eventually, the autumn rains arrive. On the steep slopes of the Serra de Monchique, that should concern us.

Soil cannot simply be replaced

Generations before us understood that farming steep mountain landscapes requires soil and water to be held on the hillside, and vegetation performs part of that job. Roots bind soil, plant material protects the surface, organic matter improves infiltration and vegetation slows moving water. When that protective layer is repeatedly disturbed, the system changes.

Scientific research has demonstrated that wild-boar rooting can substantially alter vegetation and soil properties. Importantly, the science does not tell us that all Javali disturbance is harmful.

Research from Mediterranean environments has shown that lower levels of wild-boar activity can form part of normal ecological disturbance. At higher densities, however, researchers have recorded deterioration in the physical, chemical and biological characteristics of soil. That distinction is fundamental.

The problem is not the existence of Javali. The problem arises when the number of animals and the intensity of disturbance exceed what the landscape and the people managing it can reasonably tolerate.

Portugal already knows there is a problem

This is not something that has suddenly been discovered by a few frustrated landowners in Monchique. Portugal's Instituto da Conservação da Natureza e das Florestas — ICNF — has supported the development of a Plano Estratégico e de Ação do Javali em Portugal.

The associated JAVALI.PT work, undertaken with CESAM at the University of Aveiro, investigated population characteristics, animal condition, habitat and factors influencing damage. ICNF itself identifies the need for sustainable management and the mitigation of negative impacts associated with Javali, including agroforestry damage and disease transmission. The subsequent national work concluded that Javali were generally overabundant in mainland Portugal, although the scale of the problem varies geographically.

We are therefore no longer debating whether excessive Javali populations can create a problem. The problem has already been recognised.

From the landowner's perspective, outcomes matter

There is considerable value in knowing how many Javali live within an area. Population estimates help authorities determine whether numbers are increasing or decreasing and whether management programmes are working. Hunting records are useful, damage reports are useful and scientific studies are useful. But imagine explaining this to a small farmer who wakes tomorrow morning to discover that his vegetable crop has been destroyed, or to somebody who has paid to restore an abandoned terrace and finds the newly established vegetation rooted over. Their question is unlikely to be: "What census methodology is being used?" Their question will be: "What is going to stop this happening again?" That is where we believe the debate needs to move.

Are we measuring activity or measuring success?

There is an important difference. The number of hunting events conducted is a measure of activity. The number of Javali killed is a measure of removal. Neither necessarily tells us whether the problem is being solved. Success should ultimately be measured by outcomes.

Are Javali numbers declining where they are excessive; are farmers reporting less damage; are restoration plantings surviving; are terraces being disturbed less frequently; are landowners spending less on fencing and repairs; is ecological damage decreasing; is the situation getting better?

If we cannot answer those questions, it becomes difficult to know whether existing management is adequate.

The famous 70% figure

A figure often appears in discussions surrounding wild pigs and wild boar: 70%. It is sometimes presented as though 70% of every wild-boar population must be killed annually, which is an oversimplification.

Research and population modelling from different countries and circumstances have suggested that very high annual removal rates — sometimes around 55–70% in populations open to immigration — can be required to suppress population growth. That does not mean that Monchique automatically requires a 70% annual cull. We should not import a figure from another ecological situation and present it as established Portuguese policy.

The research illustrates something extremely important: removing a lot of animals is not necessarily the same as reducing a population. A highly reproductive population can replace substantial losses. That means the relevant question is not simply "How many Javali were killed last year?" but "Was the population reduced sufficiently for damage to decline?"

Fencing is not population control

At Raízes da Montanha, we are investing considerable effort in electric fencing. We are attempting to teach Javali that our boundaries are places they should avoid.

But even if our fencing is completely successful, we need to be honest about what we have achieved: we have not solved Monchique's Javali problem; we have simply transferred it.

The animals that cannot enter our terraces may visit the neighbouring property instead. That neighbour then erects a fence. The Javali move again.

Eventually, we risk creating a landscape in which individual landowners spend increasing amounts of money fortifying their properties against a wildlife population whose overall pressure remains unchanged. Surely we should ask whether that represents sensible landscape management.

The burden increasingly falls upon the landowner

This is perhaps the aspect that concerns us most. A landowner trying to bring abandoned agricultural terraces back into management is already accepting a considerable responsibility.

Land needs clearing; vegetation needs managing; fire risk must be considered; water systems require restoration; terraces require maintenance; soil needs protecting; trees require management; fences require maintenance.

For many small properties, the economics are already extremely difficult.

Now add the cost of defending that land against Javali: electric fencing; energisers; solar systems; posts; wire; maintenance; repairing damage; replacing crops; re-establishing vegetation; and the time required to do all of it.

At some point, we should ask: how much responsibility for controlling a wider wildlife-population problem can reasonably be transferred to individual landowners?

This matters to the Green Corridor

Monchique has rightly embraced ambitious ideas surrounding landscape resilience. The Green Corridor and other initiatives recognise that wildfire, biodiversity, vegetation management, water, agriculture and rural abandonment cannot be considered independently, which we strongly support.

Javali, however, need to be included much more prominently within that same conversation. In particular, if public policy encourages landowners to restore vegetation, protect soil, improve infiltration and regenerate abandoned landscapes, then excessive wildlife pressure capable of damaging that work cannot be treated as an unrelated issue.

Otherwise, we risk spending money and enormous amounts of human effort restoring landscapes while simultaneously accepting a level of animal pressure capable of undermining those investments. That makes little sense environmentally or economically.

Is enough actually being done?

It would be unfair to claim that nothing is being done. Javali are hunted, population-control actions occur, ICNF has commissioned substantial research, management plans exist and damage is recognised.

Portuguese researchers have contributed valuable scientific evidence. But acknowledging those efforts should not prevent us from asking the uncomfortable question: are the measures currently being taken sufficient?

From the perspective of landowners experiencing continuing and sometimes severe damage, that is ultimately what matters. The existence of strategies and studies cannot itself be the measure of success; the condition of the landscape must be. If significant damage continues year after year, we need to be prepared to question whether the response is keeping pace with the problem. That is not criticism for criticism's sake. It is exactly what adaptive land management should involve: observe; act; measure; adapt. If an intervention is not producing the required outcome, change the intervention.

We need urgency, not hostility

We do not want the discussion surrounding Javali to become a campaign against wildlife. Javali belong in the Serra de Monchique, as they have an ecological role, and our objective should not be eradication. But respecting wildlife does not require us to ignore ecological imbalance. Indeed, responsible conservation should require precisely the opposite. Where populations become excessive and significant damage results, intervention can itself become an act of stewardship.

The debate should therefore move beyond the simplistic choice between being "for" or "against" Javali. We are for balance.

And we need to listen to the people managing the land

Perhaps the most useful monitoring system already exists. It is distributed across hundreds of farms, gardens, orchards and properties throughout the Serra. The people managing those places know when something changes.

They know when damage increases; they know when crops disappear; they know when newly planted trees are uprooted; they know how often Javali visit; they know how much money and labour they are spending trying to prevent it.

That local knowledge should be captured systematically.

A simple reporting system allowing landowners to photograph damage, geolocate it and estimate the affected area could begin producing an extremely valuable map of Javali pressure across Monchique. The technology required already exists in almost everyone's pocket.

At Raízes da Montanha, we will start with our own land

We intend to record what happens here. Where practical, Javali damage will be photographed, dated and mapped. We will record the approximate area affected and monitor what subsequently happens to the disturbed ground. We are particularly interested in what happens following significant rainfall.

Does vegetation recover; does disturbed soil move; does runoff behave differently; does the same location get rooted again; does electric fencing reduce the frequency of damage? We do not know the answers. That is precisely why we intend to observe.

Recognition must eventually become results

Portugal has studied Javali; the problem is recognised; scientific evidence exists; management mechanisms exist; hunting takes place.

What landowners now need to see is measurable improvement on the ground, because ultimately the success of Javali management will not be determined by the number of reports produced, meetings held, hunting days organised or animals recorded. It will be visible in something considerably simpler:

Less damage; less destroyed agriculture; less disturbed restoration planting; less money spent defending individual properties; less bare soil.

At Raízes da Montanha, we will continue to protect our land as best we can, but fencing ourselves off cannot be the long-term answer to a landscape-scale problem.

Monchique is increasingly recognising that soil, water, vegetation, wildfire, biodiversity, agriculture and people form one interconnected system. Javali management belongs within that system too.

Recognition was the first step. Now we need to ask whether recognition is being translated into sufficient action. Ultimately, the landscape itself will provide the answer.

References and further reading

ICNF — Instituto da Conservação da Natureza e das Florestas. Plano Estratégico e de Ação do Javali em Portugal and JAVALI.PT programme information.

CESAM — Universidade de Aveiro. Research supporting the development of Portugal's strategic and action plan for wild boar and the assessment of population status and management requirements.

Macci, C. et al. (2012). Effects of wild boar (Sus scrofa) grazing on soil properties in Mediterranean environment. CATENA 98: 79–86.

Massei, G. et al. (2020). Too many wild boar? Modelling fertility control and culling to reduce wild boar numbers in isolated populations. PLOS ONE.

Hábenczyus, A.A., Biró, C. & Tölgyesi, C. (2025). Research examining vegetation recovery and restoration following wild-boar rooting.