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The new LIFE Olivares Vivos+ project, which aims to decrease the envi­ron­men­tal impact of olive cul­ti­va­tion while increas­ing prof­its for farm­ers, is to expand beyond Spain into the main olive-grow­ing regions of Italy, Greece and Portugal.

Presented at the head­quar­ters of the International Olive Council in Madrid, the project is to run from this year until 2026.

The pre­vi­ous iter­a­tion ran from 2015 to 2020 and showed sig­nif­i­cant increases in bio­di­ver­sity along­side an aver­age 22-per­cent decrease in fer­til­izer and phy­tosan­i­tary spend­ing and pay­ments to farm­ers via the numer­ous envi­ron­men­tal ini­tia­tives of the new Common Agricultural Policy.

The Olivares Vivos model is based on research car­ried out by the ecol­ogy depart­ment of the University of Jaén in con­junc­tion with the Arid Zones Experimental Station of the Spanish National Research Council.

This research mea­sured bio­di­ver­sity in 40 olive groves in Andalusia before and after the intro­duc­tion of wildlife-recov­ery mea­sures.

The study con­firmed that within three years of the project’s imple­men­ta­tion, the num­ber of species of birds, ants, bees and plants increased by seven to 12 per­cent in the par­tic­i­pat­ing groves and the abun­dance of these species rose by 40 per­cent. In the medium term, an addi­tional 25 per­cent is expected to be recov­ered.

In total, 180 bird species, 60 ant species, 200 kinds of wild bees and more than 750 plant vari­eties have been found in the stud­ied olive groves, includ­ing a plant pre­vi­ously unknown to sci­ence, Linaria Qartobensis, a rare endemic species that has been called a ​“jewel of Andalusian flora.”

In this new phase, Project LIFE will seek to extend and repli­cate this model within Spain, through demon­stra­tion farms and train­ing courses for farm­ers, in the autonomous com­mu­ni­ties of Andalusia, Extremadura, Madrid, Castilla-La Mancha, Valencia and Catalonia.

Specific atten­tion will be given to the impact that cli­mate change may have on the model, par­tic­u­larly in olive groves located in the semi-arid areas of the Andalusian provinces of Almeria and Granada.

More sig­nif­i­cantly, it will also be intro­duced to the Alentejo region of Portugal; the regions of Tuscany and Puglia in Italy; and both the Peloponnese and Crete in Greece.

“The olive grove is the most impor­tant crop for wildlife con­ser­va­tion in Europe,” said Asunción Ruiz, the exec­u­tive direc­tor of SEO/BirdLife, one of the orga­ni­za­tions involved in the project. ​“The fact that Olivares Vivos+ is accel­er­at­ing its expan­sion in the main olive-grow­ing regions of the Mediterranean basin, a bio­di­ver­sity hotspot, rep­re­sents a global com­mit­ment to recover the link between agri­cul­ture and nature while main­tain­ing the farm­ers’ inter­ests as a foun­da­tion.”

Over the com­ing years, the aim of the project is to apply its results to other crops, such as vines, almond trees and cit­rus fruits.

“We are con­vinced that this exten­sion will be the defin­i­tive step to con­sol­i­date Olivares Vivos as a ref­er­ence, adding more allies and con­sol­i­dat­ing in Europe a model of agri­cul­ture rec­on­ciled with life,” said Ruiz.

Many of the indi­vid­ual mea­sures that con­sti­tute the back­bone of the model are sur­pris­ingly straight­for­ward. They include the man­age­ment of herba­ceous cover, the restora­tion of so-called ​“unpro­duc­tive areas” in olive groves such as gul­lies, streams, tracks and walls; the rein­tro­duc­tion of non-crop native species, and the instal­la­tion of sup­port infra­struc­tures for fauna such as ponds, nest­ing boxes and fenc­ing posts.

Thanks to the involve­ment of char­i­ta­ble foun­da­tions, a sub­stan­tial num­ber of these activ­i­ties have been sup­ported by vol­un­teers work­ing along­side the farm­ers par­tic­i­pat­ing in the project.

So far, more than 750 farm­ers have applied to par­tic­i­pate in this new stage, and 68 areas have signed a man­i­festo pledg­ing their com­mit­ment to link the future of their olive pro­duc­tion with the future of their local bio­di­ver­sity.

• Olivares Vivo
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