When we think of small villages, we usually think of pleasant and familiar places, where most of the people living there all know each other and their closeness creates warm neighbourly relations. They are places which, unlike city life, offer a wonderful opportunity to experience and enjoy nature, which selflessly offers its riches.
Sadly, in Spain almost 900 villages have disappeared in the last 15 years and some are under constant threat of depopulation. This creates huge cultural losses, such as loss of identity and of course the loss of the countryside. Oliete in Teruel, is an example of this current situation, a village with varied natural wealth, inhabited by legumes, cereals, almond, peach and olive trees.
According to figures from May 2014, had 365 inhabitants and 100,000 abandoned100 year-old olive trees. Faced with this sad situation, a group of young people is carrying out the project Apadrina un Olivo with the goal of recovering the fields and in turn attracting more people to boost the population.
The project Apadrina un Olivo uses a strategic investment model that changes the paradigm of abandonment of rural areas in a sustainable way and empowers its inhabitants to value their natural resources.
José Alfredo Martín, Alberto Alfonso, Sira Plana and Adrián Martín are the driving forces behind this social and environmental project. Their focus is on recovering the abandoned natural heritage in empty Spain through generating sustainable rural development. What’s more is that as part of their project and their philosophy of inclusion, people with people with intellectual disabilities are also involved in the project. They have the support of companies such as Zeleris, Reale, Accenture, Procter and Gamble, Bellota and Vidrala, which together with the sponsors, have made it possible to reverse the situation of abandonment of Oliete, through the sponsorship of some of the 100,000 centenary olive trees.
Today Oliete has 18 young local farmers established in the village, working full time and an annual tourism of 3000 people.
Apadrina un Olivo has had hugely beneficial impacts on the local community. Had it not been for Apadrina un Olivo, today there would be no such group of young farmers working full time and their school would have closed for lack of children. They have been able to keep local businesses like shops and restaurants open to benefit from the annual visit of 3,000 or so tourists. The 15,000 olive trees that have been received to date have been saved from abandonment which would of course had devastating knock on effects for the environment and the rural ecosystem. Thanks to the olive mill, which empowers 200 small local farmers in the area, even more olive trees have been rescued. The farms have become more profitable as a result and hva changed the way they produce for the better. However, changing mindsets and more advanced practices in the way they farm and produce often becomes a challenge for villagers, as many are reluctant to change. For example, it is difficult to demonstrate the advantages of a more sustainable agriculture focused on quality, but little by little, with a lot of work, patience and love, trends are being transformed and good practices are being implemented.
This is a project that is characterised by its self-sufficiency, as it markets the oil and olive derivatives through its own brands: “Mi Olivo” and “Mi huerto”. It is a sustainable initiative due to its circular economy, as it reuses the waste generated in the cultivation and that of the olive in the mill, generating its own energy through sunlight. Through the innovative proposal of sponsoring an olive tree, any person or company can enter the organisation’s website, contribute €50, choose which olive tree to recover, symbolically baptise it and visit it. During the experience, an emotional bond is generated between the person, nature and the village, as the day-to-day life of the olive tree is visible through the My Olive Tree App and the e-mails sent to the more than 6,000 godparents, who, after the harvest and as thanks for their solidarity, will receive 2 litres of extra virgin olive oil per year in their homes.
Sponsoring an olive tree is an enriching experience with a great environmental impact, as each sponsor who takes part in the project makes it his or her own and becomes a standard bearer for the rural cause.
From Efecto Colibrí we encourage you to be a standard bearer of this cause, to be part of the transformation in rural areas and the recovery of the olive groves. Come and sponsor an olive tree, become a rural standard bearer!
