Secrets of the Dehesa
Doing the Camino de Santiago I encountered an ecosystem which, seemed to me, an unexplained paradise. Coming from Mexico, to be in this domesticated environment felt completely safe from scoundrels, both natural and human. And thus one becomes that scoundrel and jumps barbwire you’re not supposed to cross.
The owners should be proud of the state and the health of their land. One can see nature’s creativity everywhere. It is completely devoid of human beings, it is simply cattle, nature, and erosion who are in charge of these exotic gardens. I wandered the dehesa during three days, and I encountered only animals, and exactly one rancher, who happened to be friendly to my trespassing.
The Oak trees of the Dehesa are remarkably expressive. Every tree seems to be telling a story, and if you look closely at this one, you will find many symbols, which ones do you see?
The black Iberian pork feasts on the acorns of this tree during the months of autumn, fattening its legs to create the world’s best ham.
If that weren’t enough, every 9 years these trees go naked to provide us with the cork that safeguards our wine. Their bark, peeled off, grows slowly back. Looking at their girth, it is obvious they love to be part of it.
One is continually presented with these scenes that seem to come out of a bonsai exhibition, but it is simply nature, undisturbed:
One becomes tempted to compare it to a golf club, but looking closely this label of expertise far surpasses what any human hand can do. Decide for yourself:
One can see the mastery of nature itself, simple and abundant. It would seem this domesticated ecosystem simply strives to make us prosperous. It even gives us diligent gardeners:
And it knows how to defend its land from intruders, if necessary:
The calves are allowed to suck freely from their mothers. It would seem common sense that all the world should follow the pleasure of nature, but we insist on being efficient, creating factories for milk and meat, and between factory and factory there is a barren and sterile land for any life to arise. The dehesa might not be the most efficient use of land, but it is nature in balance with reason.
To best produce acorns, the trees must be trimmed, providing a source of wood material, which is currently burned. Hopefully some day we wise up enough to understand that we are meant to store this carbon energy in some efficient way. We already do this to a certain extent with its cork.
The dehesa is a wonderful collaboration between man and nature, a process in which one does the least intervention possible, because nature’s wisdom takes over, and the land becomes prosperous. It is man made, but nature managed.
The healthiness of the land leads one to feel invigorated, welcoming the transition from winter to springtime, in a latitude to which one is not accustomed.
The only encounter I had with a sad animal was this donkey, whose front feet were chained, so that he could only walk in very small steps and that he wouldn’t wander too far away. Other donkeys I encountered were free-range, so I infer he was under training.
I understand my friend, to live life in small steps is a difficult lesson.
I compare this land with that of which I know in Mexico, and it feels much more domesticated, as if the earth itself was happy to collaborate with man. But I know that it is man who also shares responsibility, by patient removal anything that harms him or his animals.
And by this virtue, the animals seem tremendously happy without predators. Even dogs guarding the flock didn’t bother waking up from their nap when I passed through.
Of course we need to protect virgin ecosystems in our planet, that is a given. But let’s also look at fruitful collaborations between man and nature, because we treat nature in a brutish sort of way, most farmlands we have on the other side of the Atlantic operate like factories.
The engineer in us wants to squeeze our the maximum amount of meat, cheese, wood, acorns, mushrooms, cork and milk per hectare, but the dehesa never feels over exploited, it is an ecosystem that works best with little human intervention. Man mostly intervenes only to cultivate this land, a land so prosperous it doesn’t even have a planting season.
I look at this and I sometimes worry that we will ruin all it, but I come into my senses and I see that the people who live here, though often poor, live a relatively prosperous and long life in love with their land. A healthy nature clearly supports healthy human beings, and though “poor” by some economists standard, it seems us city dwellers lead an impoverished life far removed from nature.
Let us thank that this land has been declared World Heritage, for it serves as a model of land domestication. The time will come when human population peaks, and we need to learn how to give back our land to nature. The dehesa offers her secrets in plain sight.
