On Stromboli, Olive Trees Help Restore Land, Community and Tradition

Summary

Attiva Stromboli is lead­ing an ini­tia­tive to revive olive cul­ti­va­tion on Stromboli Island, which aims to restore the land­scape, regen­er­ate the soil, and strengthen com­mu­nity net­works. The project involves plant­ing olive trees, restor­ing dry stone walls, and reshap­ing land using tra­di­tional tech­niques, with the goal of pro­mot­ing sus­tain­able soil man­age­ment on Mediterranean islands. Despite chal­lenges like wild­fires and floods, the asso­ci­a­tion has made progress in reclaim­ing land, restor­ing ter­races, and rein­tro­duc­ing olive trees and caper plants to enhance bio­di­ver­sity and sup­port the local econ­omy.

On Stromboli Island, the north­ern­most of Sicily’s Aeolian arch­i­pel­ago and home to the epony­mous vol­cano, the revival of olive cul­ti­va­tion is help­ing to safe­guard the land­scape, regen­er­ate the soil and strengthen local com­mu­nity net­works.

The effort is being led by the non-profit asso­ci­a­tion Attiva Stromboli, which com­bines the recov­ery and plant­ing of olive trees with the restora­tion of dry stone walls and the reshap­ing of land using tra­di­tional hydraulic tech­niques.

A study con­ducted by the University of Tuscia rec­og­nized the ini­tia­tive as a best-prac­tice model for sus­tain­able soil man­age­ment on Mediterranean islands.

“This is a one-of-a-kind envi­ron­ment, defined by the pres­ence of one of the world’s most active vol­ca­noes,” Paolo de Rosa, legal rep­re­sen­ta­tive of Attiva Stromboli, told Olive Oil Times. ​“It is a frag­ile ecosys­tem that is also threat­ened by the loss of land man­age­ment, a wide­spread phe­nom­e­non that has affected mar­ginal areas since the mid-20^th cen­tury due to emi­gra­tion.”

As on many other Italian islands, tourism began to develop on Stromboli in the 1950s, grad­u­ally reviv­ing the island’s econ­omy.

Today, tourism is the island’s pri­mary eco­nomic dri­ver. Stromboli has roughly 500 per­ma­nent res­i­dents, and while its crys­talline waters attract thou­sands of vis­i­tors in the warmer months, many also come to see ​“Iddu,” the affec­tion­ate local name for the vol­cano. Hiking tours led by licensed guides are among the most pop­u­lar ways to explore its slopes.

Founded to pro­mote the ter­ri­tory and its cul­ture, Attiva Stromboli launched a 2018 project to estab­lish a com­mu­nity olive mill and revive olive cul­ti­va­tion as a first step toward restor­ing and enhanc­ing the land­scape.

“Beyond tourism, agri­cul­ture had been side­lined and the land­scape largely neglected,” de Rosa said. ​“It was nec­es­sary to inter­vene to restore eco­log­i­cal bal­ance. Starting with olive cul­ti­va­tion was nat­ural, as it had once been cen­tral to the island’s econ­omy, which in the 1930s counted five active mills.”

After the presses were dis­man­tled, grow­ers were forced to load their olives onto fer­ries and ship them to off-island mills. Frequent weather dis­rup­tions often delayed pro­cess­ing, com­pro­mis­ing oil qual­ity.

“Instead of rely­ing on exter­nal facil­i­ties, a social oil mill allows us to pro­duce directly on the island and encour­ages greater care for the olive trees,” de Rosa said.

With sup­port from the Sicily Environment Fund and sev­eral pri­vate donors, the asso­ci­a­tion pur­chased a state-of-the-art mill equipped with Mori-Tem tech­nol­ogy.

The ini­tia­tive also reached pri­vate villa own­ers with orna­men­tal olive trees. ​“We pro­posed agree­ments under which we would prune and har­vest the trees,” de Rosa said. ​“Many res­i­dents then began car­ing for their trees inde­pen­dently and recov­er­ing aban­doned ones. This helped achieve one of our main goals: that the com­mu­nity itself pro­tects the island’s land.”

Over time, pro­duc­tion tripled and par­tic­i­pa­tion grew from 10 to more than 30 peo­ple. Between 100 and 150 bot­tles are now pro­duced annu­ally and auc­tioned dur­ing a har­vest fes­ti­val, with pro­ceeds rein­vested in the project.

The ini­tia­tive, how­ever, could not shield the ter­ri­tory from the scale of a human-caused wild­fire in May 2022, which destroyed 200 hectares of veg­e­ta­tion, fol­low­ing ear­lier blazes linked to erup­tive activ­ity in 2019 and 2021.

“We are used to wild­fires caused by vol­canic activ­ity, but that blaze was enor­mous,” de Rosa recalled. ​“What moved me most was the col­lec­tive response and the sol­i­dar­ity shown in pro­tect­ing both peo­ple and land.”

The fire was fol­lowed by a major flood in August, expos­ing severe hydro­ge­o­log­i­cal insta­bil­ity.

“We real­ized that beyond recov­er­ing dam­aged olive trees, we needed to work sys­tem­at­i­cally, restor­ing ter­races so water could flow and drain prop­erly,” de Rosa said. ​“We used the momen­tum from these events to raise funds for coor­di­nated land recla­ma­tion, par­tic­u­larly in the upper areas above the vil­lage.”

With renewed sup­port from the Sicily Environment Fund and con­tri­bu­tions from pri­vate donors and pro­fes­sion­als, the asso­ci­a­tion secured resources to pur­chase equip­ment, recruit vol­un­teers and hire a sea­sonal worker. Operations began in November 2022.

So far, one hectare has been reclaimed. The work included restor­ing dry stone walls, build­ing slope-sta­bi­liza­tion struc­tures and fire­breaks, prun­ing and plant­ing olive trees and caper plants, restor­ing an old cis­tern and installing a new irri­ga­tion sys­tem.

The group recov­ered cen­turies-old olive trees and planted about 200 Nocellara Messinese saplings, aim­ing to reach at least 500 trees in the long term.

They also intro­duced caper plants (Capparis spin­osa), prop­a­gated from local cut­tings and seeds, to pre­serve bio­di­ver­sity and cre­ate a resilient inter­crop­ping sys­tem.

Where dry stone walls could not be fully restored, the group adopted a sim­pli­fied tra­di­tional slope-sta­bi­liza­tion method known as ​“fas­ci­nate,” or ​“pal­iz­zate,” also called the ​“beaver tech­nique.” Bundles of prun­ing residues were fas­tened along slopes to slow water runoff.

“With these struc­tures in place, water no longer flows straight down­hill but fol­lows a zigzag path, releas­ing sed­i­ment and grad­u­ally lev­el­ing the ter­races,” de Rosa explained.

The sys­tem pro­motes the devel­op­ment of micro­fauna, enhances soil fer­til­ity, and allows prun­ing residues to be reused on site. Maintenance mainly involves trim­ming veg­e­ta­tion when bram­bles begin to grow.

“Once reg­u­lated, rain­wa­ter is no longer a threat but a resource that sup­ports the growth of new olive trees,” de Rosa said.

Researchers con­firmed the effec­tive­ness of the work, not­ing that the agro­forestry approach, com­bined with restored dry stone walls and the recov­ery of tra­di­tional eco­log­i­cal knowl­edge, reduces ero­sion risks, strength­ens cli­mate adap­ta­tion and restores agro­bio­di­ver­sity while ben­e­fit­ing the local econ­omy and tourism.

Attiva Stromboli also involved stu­dents from the island’s pri­mary and sec­ondary schools, engag­ing them in prun­ing, har­vest­ing, and orga­niz­ing train­ing courses to intro­duce young peo­ple to olive oil pro­duc­tion.

“Last year, we planted another 40 olive trees along the seafront as a pub­lic asset,” de Rosa said. ​“Olive trees deserve to once again be cen­tral to island life. Beyond their sub­sis­tence value, man­ag­ing olive groves helps safe­guard the entire ecosys­tem.”

“But this project does not end here,” he added. ​“This frag­ile ecosys­tem, exposed to nat­ural and human pres­sures, requires con­stant care. Our hope is to secure fur­ther insti­tu­tional sup­port to con­tinue this work.”