HALT FARM FIRES

It is stun­ning to learn that the air that I and my fam­ily breathe in the moun­tains is at cer­tain times of the year worse than Barcelona. Fact. Maybe you saw the flurry of media cov­er­age re­gard­ing new re­search.

Hands up, for we on our lit­tle olive farm have been part of this mo­lesta­tion of our pre­cious val­ley, our vil­lages, well­be­ing and planet. Well, what harm can small bon­fires of prun­ings do? When I read the data, scented the smoke in the air, looked out across the Pri­o­rat and Baix Ebre at the host of grey plumes across the farms I shud­dered. In the cold of De­cem­ber, Jan­u­ary and Feb­ru­ary, the smoke would barely rise and then spread a film of poi­son.

This is not going to en­dear me to some of our neigh­bours, but we have to change our rural ways now. We can, if the local, re­gional and na­tional gov­ern­ments here in Cat­alo­nia sup­port us, bring a swift, huge ben­e­fit lo­cally and glob­ally IF we stop burn­ing bio­mass, aka vine, olive, al­mond and other cut­tings.

The time is ob­vi­ously now for a na­tion­wide en­deav­our to change minds, change prac­tices, change our well­be­ing for the bet­ter, for a con­certed pro­gramme to ed­u­cate and sup­port. Make it hap­pen Gen­er­al­i­tat. It is vital there is the cli­mate sci­ence in place, funded and fun­da­men­tal to our col­lec­tive well­be­ing and hal­lelu­jah for that. In so many ways Cat­alo­nia is work­ing to rec­on­cile stark re­al­i­ties with un­sus­tain­able prac­tices. But I and my fam­ily are im­pa­tient. Let’s get on with this spe­cific rural change for the bet­ter, not slowly, not in the near fu­ture but now. Give may­ors and their coun­cils the funds to equip and to mulch all waste. In­cen­tivise. When this al­ter­na­tive is in place and clear guid­ance on how to use mulch is un­der­stood then stop the fires.

Mulch? We need to talk about mulch; how and where to use it and is­sues to be mind­ful of. It can be a won­der food for the land, es­pe­cially in time of drought. Feed the branches into a tow­able ma­chine and use the chopped bio­mass to re­tain mois­ture where needed, to pro­tect plants, to nur­ture bugs and, hence, birds and other crea­tures.

Why should we? Farm­ers are wise and sus­tain. Yes, in so many ways. But we have to heed the sci­ence. And think about it – there would be no need to rush to burn in win­ter when the risk of wild­fires is lower and smoke will be trapped in val­leys. Wild­fire risks con­tinue to rise year round due to drought. Mulching can be done through the year.

Missed the cov­er­age? The In­sti­tute of En­vi­ron­men­tal As­sess­ment and Water Re­search re­vealed that harm­ful aerosols from burn­ing bio­mass ru­rally cause more dam­age to human cells than those gen­er­ated by Barcelona traf­fic. As we strug­gle to fig­ure how we as in­di­vid­u­als can play a part in com­bat­ing cli­mate change, this is one sig­nif­i­cant rural way, for a host of rea­sons.

Your opin­ion?