Albano Augusto Veiga Viseu
The Mirandela Cork Factory and the Tua Line Albano Augusto Veiga Viseu
1. INTRODUCTION • 73
The northeast region of Trás-os-Montes used to be covered by a dense forest that use of land for agriculture, the rearing of livestock and the humanization of the landscape. repopulate plants and implement measures that could avoid the total dilapidation of the region’s hills and mountains. In the area surrounding the villages and populations, in the ring where the practice of agriculture was possible and more frequent, in a peripheral area near the housing, trees were planted and the existing trees were preserved. The forested area which consisted of other trees and shrubs occupied the majority of the landscape, either in a dense or scattered form, and represented a source of wealth for the populations. The Mirandela municipality shared this characterizing aspect and presented more abundant trees, in addition to the olive tree planted in the 16th century, construction of cars and farming tools and its leaves used for feeding pigs), the the cork oak.