OLIVE GROVES FROM PUGLIA

Hello All,

I would like to spend some time talking about my country and in particular what happened in Puglia the last few years.

Salento is an area in the Puglia region which has the most important olive-grove of the all country. In fact, over 25% of the agricultural area has olive trees, for a total of about ten millions of plants and more that 30% of them are secular trees.





UNESCO declared Salento a World Heritage site thanks to the historic origin of this area. In fact, accordingly with the historic information at disposal, it appears that olive groves in the south of Italy have been introduced by the Ancient Greeks.






Unfortunately, since 2012 it seems that olive plants are affected by desiccation that, in months, transforms the plants in skeletons. At the beginning, there was the suspect that a kind of sickness called Xylella was affecting this area of Italy, because few years before California and Brazil were affected by this disease which caused the same symptoms on their fruit plants.

In order to limit the damages to the trees surrounding the sick plants, the European Community asked the Italian government to intervene to contain the emergency.
After a short analysis of the olive groves, it seemed that just a small minority of them were affected by the Xylella virus, but despite of this, the Italian Government decided to eradicate all the olive trees of the area in order to prevent the spreading, regardless the fact that the plants were affected by the virus of not. 









Obviously, this matter raised huge controversial discussions between the authorities which were pushing for a radical solution and the local inhabitants which were concerned about their crops and investments, and they were actually looking for a softer solution of the problem.  In fact, the local communities support a different theory which sustains that the damages of the plants were caused mainly by a fungus and that it can be easily treated with natural remedies.

After over two years of analysis and investigations it has been confirmed that the Xylella virus is responsible for the olives trees desiccation and the Europen Commission has confirmed the eradication not only of the olive trees with the bacterium but also of the plants around them in order to prevent and limit the spread of this disease.

Unfortunately, even an olive tree old 1500 years has been eradicated in March last year.
Its name was Allister.









This is a real drama for the Puglia considering the olive oil production is the second major income for this region, not only the producers are affected by this eradication but also the local economies related to this market.

However, this 2017 seems to bring some positive news: the European commission gave the permission to replant olive trees in the areas affected by the epidemic. These new plants seem to be more resistant to the Xylella virus and hopefully will be able to improve the difficult situation this part of Italy is facing in the recent times.

This situation degenerated a bit further at the beginning of April 2017 since in the last few weeks the Italian Institutions decided to import gas from east Europe and to do so something like 200 olives groves need to be eradicated. Once again, the local population actively protested, both in the site and to the local authorities but they have been removed by police force. 

Sadly it seems that the Puglia region will have a huge battle to face in order to save their olive groves from extinction. I really hope this situation is reversed for good.
THE BEST OF LUCH SALENTO!!!




http://www.salento.info/744-gli-ulivi-del-salento/

http://www.video.mediaset.it/video/iene/puntata/toffa-salviamo-gli-ulivi-del-salento_526752.html

http://www.bioaksxter.com/blog/xylella-puglia/

http://www.nationalgeographic.it/italia/2016/03/30/news/xylella_confermato_il_legame_con_la_malattia_degli_ulivi-3035084/

http://bari.repubblica.it/cronaca/2016/03/10/news/xylella_alliste-135196313/?refresh_ce#gallery-slider=128238649

http://www.panorama.it/scienza/green/xylella-ulivi-salento/

http://www.repubblica.it/ambiente/2017/01/23/news/primo_ok_bruxelles_reimpianto_ulivi_salneto_xylella-156713573/

http://www.ilfattoquotidiano.it/2017/03/28/tap-via-libera-alla-rimozione-degli-ulivi-in-puglia-per-la-costruzione-del-gasdotto/3481248/