Lisbon, Mar 21 (IANS): Portuguese Prime Minister Antonio Costa has announced a 7 billion euro ($8.33 billion) investment in forest preservation until the year 2030.

"It is an investment in fire-fighting and prevention equipment, but it is above all an investment in the structural transformation of our forest, which means avoiding monoculture (and) creating a landscape mosaic," Xinhua news agency quoted Costa as saying in an announcement on Saturday.

The forest should be considered as "a source of wealth" and something that has "added value", he stressed.

The government has promised that a large number of equipment will be acquired and distributed to organisations and inter-municipal communities for both fire fighting and forest maintenance.

The Portuguese forest is a very old ecosystem, beginning with deciduous trees in the North and evergreen trees in the South.

Currently, the Portuguese forest area occupies about 3.3 million hectares.