Celebrating South America's Historic Olive Trees

While the olive tree is widely asso­ci­ated with the Mediterranean basin, it also has deep roots in the Americas.

The first olive trees arrived on the con­ti­nents with Spanish mis­sion­ar­ies, estab­lish­ing a foothold in many for­mer colonies, from Argentina to California.

However, the his­tory of these cen­turies-old olive trees in South America has been largely for­got­ten with an esti­mated 70 per­cent of them hav­ing been removed to plant other crops.

Sudoliva, an orga­ni­za­tion ded­i­cated to doc­u­ment­ing and pre­serv­ing cen­te­nar­ian trees in the Americas and pro­mot­ing a con­ti­nen­tal olive oil cul­ture, is work­ing to change this at the sec­ond edi­tion of its her­itage olive tree con­test.

Founder Gianfranco Vargas told Olive Oil Times that the event is an aca­d­e­mic and cul­tural ini­tia­tive cre­ated in 2017 that seeks to pre­serve healthy cen­te­nar­ian trees in the olive-grow­ing regions of the Americas.

Trees are nom­i­nated for the com­pe­ti­tion and assessed by a panel of judges based on their size, health and age, which is deter­mined using his­tor­i­cal doc­u­ments and the non-inva­sive Santander Method.

However, Vargas said the most impor­tant cri­te­rion is the cul­tural and his­tor­i­cal sig­nif­i­cance of the cen­te­nar­ian olive tree in the region.

The big win­ner from this year’s con­test was the Savona Heritage olive tree located in the Azapa Valley of north­ern Chile. Based on his­tor­i­cal data, ​“it was prob­a­bly planted more than 450 years ago and is con­sid­ered one of the old­est olive trees in South America,” Vargas said.

Indeed, his­tor­i­cal doc­u­ments show the tree was planted in 1550, a decade before it was thought olive trees arrived in South America.

“Having this data, it is pos­si­ble that olive trees were planted in the region at that time, pre­ced­ing what his­tory tells of the entry of the olive tree to Peru, Chile and Argentina,” he said.

The com­pe­ti­tion also rec­og­nized an olive tree planted in Mexico City that is thought to be one of the old­est in the Americas.

“According to his­tor­i­cal doc­u­ments, [the Tláhuac Heritage olive tree] was prob­a­bly planted by mis­sion­ary Martín de Valencia and may be one of the first olive trees planted on the American con­ti­nent, at almost 500 years old,” Vargas said.

Based on his research, Vargas said olive trees were brought to the New World for reli­gious rea­sons by Spanish mis­sion­ar­ies.

As a result, cen­te­nar­ian trees can be found across the con­ti­nent at the site of his­toric mis­sions, includ­ing in the rain­for­est of east­ern Peru and the moun­tains of Colombia.

“Many archives of reli­gious orders indi­cate requests for olive oil with urgency because the holi­est sacra­ment for Catholics is a lamp of the taber­na­cle, which rep­re­sents the pres­ence of God,” Vargas said.

“The churches said, ​‘we need olive oil; we need to plant olive trees; we need this prod­uct because oth­er­wise we do not have the pres­ence of God,’” he added.

Commercial olive cul­ti­va­tion began later in south­ern Peru and north­ern Chile, where the trees thrived in the cli­mate and soil. Known as Botija olives in Peru and Azapa olives in Chile, the fruit was har­vested when mature and became an inte­gral part of the local food cul­ture.

According to Vargas, South America’s cen­te­nar­ian trees also tell the story of the inequal­ity that plagued the con­ti­nent.

Since the first trees were brought for reli­gious pur­poses, the Spanish crown pro­hib­ited indige­nous peo­ple and, later, enslaved Africans from tend­ing to them. However, this changed with the com­mer­cial­iza­tion of trees.

For this pur­pose, Sudoliva rec­og­nized the Don Eulogio Baltazar Chanes Heritage olive tree, also located in Azapa, to pre­vent the region’s legacy of inequal­ity from being for­got­ten.

“The Don Eulogio Baltazar Chanes Heritage olive tree from Azapa was also rec­og­nized, where there was a very impor­tant hacienda ini­tially worked by native or indige­nous slaves and later worked by slaves of African descents,” Vargas said.

“The idea is that we keep this his­tory alive,” he added. ​“Our next objec­tive after the con­test is to make rules or laws in their favor.”

Since 2017, Sudoliva has cat­a­loged 51 cen­te­nar­ian trees in the Americas and has worked with gov­ern­ments in Argentina, Chile, Mexico and Peru on leg­is­la­tion to pro­tect the trees.

“In Peru, we already have the first law from the pre­vi­ous con­test that pro­tects the cen­turies-old olive trees in the Moquegua region,” Vargas said.

“In Chile, based on this con­test, we have already had con­tact last week with law­mak­ers from the Arica region to make a law to pro­tect the olive trees of the Azapa Valley,” he added.

Sudoliva is also work­ing with gov­ern­ments in Mexico and Argentina to pro­tect cen­te­nar­ian trees in both coun­tries.

Another prong of Sudoliva’s strat­egy is to help farm­ers and other locals who care for the cen­te­nar­ian trees develop gas­tro­nomic and cul­tural tourism around the trees.

Since many trees were removed for eco­nomic rea­sons, it stands to rea­son that cre­at­ing eco­nomic value is one way to ensure their pro­tec­tion.

“We want it to be a ​‘cen­te­nary olive tree route,’ he said. ​“That is the work being done so that this tree route is ulti­mately linked to two aspects, the reli­gious aspect and the gas­tro­nomic aspect, with the gas­tro­nomic aspect based on each coun­try’s regional cui­sine.”