Concrete and Water Are Damaging Montenegro's Oldest Olive Tree

Summary

More than 50 olive trees over 500 years old are found near Ulcinj and Bar on the coast of Montenegro, with the old­est, Stara Maslina in Mirovica, esti­mated to be 2,247 years old. Concerns have been raised about the sur­vival of Stara Maslina due to the with­er­ing of its branches, poten­tially caused by the con­crete pave­ment poured around the tree’s roots, lead­ing the Bar Olive Growers Association to rec­om­mend remov­ing the con­crete and allow­ing nat­ural drainage to pre­serve the his­toric tree.

Near​Ulcinj and Bar on the coast of Montenegro, more than 50 olive trees are at least 500 years old.

The old­est is Stara Maslina in Mirovica. According to sci­en­tists from the University of Istanbul’s forestry depart­ment, the tree is an esti­mated 2,247 years old, mak­ing it one of the three old­est trees in the Mediterranean basin.

“We have noth­ing more sig­nif­i­cant, noth­ing more valu­able and noth­ing older than it,” Gojko Kastratović said dur­ing a lec­ture about Montenegro’s cul­tural her­itage.

Ćazim Alković, pres­i­dent of the Bar Olive Growers Association, agrees, and he could not hide his con­cern when he learned that the branches on the old­est part of the tree were start­ing to wither. ​“We are afraid that the tree might not sur­vive,” he said.

Worrying changes were first noticed by the employ­ees of the local cul­tural cen­ter, which main­tains the park in which the tree is located. Visitors can pay an entrance fee and take a guided tour to visit the tree and learn more about it.

The local author­i­ties in Bar real­ized 18 years ago that the Stara Maslina could become a tourist attrac­tion and began devel­op­ing the area to ​“improve” the envi­ron­ment around the olive tree.

This involved pour­ing a con­crete ring around the tree to cre­ate a pave­ment for vis­i­tors. However, the con­crete was poured, so water col­lected and remained around the tree’s roots. In the mean­time, more build­ings and fam­ily houses were con­structed around the olive tree.

Ratko Bataković, an agron­o­mist from Nikšić, a town in the con­ti­nen­tal area of​Montenegro, was the first to warn about the prob­lem and its pos­si­ble con­se­quences. In an arti­cle pub­lished in the daily news­pa­per Republika, he explained the per­ni­cious­ness of the con­crete sur­round­ing Stara Maslina.

Some cit­i­zens protested, includ­ing the well-known archae­ol­o­gist Omer Peročević and activist Anto Baković.

However, local media did not speak out against the deci­sion then, nor did the Bar Association of Olive Growers until four years ago, when the cur­rent pres­i­dent, Ćazim Alković, came to the fore.

Since then, the Bar Olive Growers Association has under­taken numer­ous activ­i­ties. He signed a con­tract with the cul­tural cen­ter to help main­tain Stara Maslina. During three years, the asso­ci­a­tion applied all nec­es­sary agrotech­ni­cal mea­sures.

“In accor­dance with the rec­om­men­da­tions of the fac­ulty of biotech­nol­ogy, we car­ried out top dress­ing through soil and leaves, pro­tec­tion against pests and dis­eases, san­i­tary prun­ing and every­thing else,” Alković said.

In addi­tion, the cul­tural cen­ter orga­nized the pub­lic har­vest of Stara Maslina two years in a row, which became a fes­ti­val in the city that also marked the begin­ning of the olive har­vest.

Many res­i­dents and guests, includ­ing the agri­cul­ture min­is­ter, the Bar munic­i­pal assem­bly pres­i­dent and the Bar munic­i­pal­ity pres­i­dent, par­tic­i­pated in the pub­lic har­vest.

Altogether, the com­pany pro­duced olive oil from care­fully picked fruits only from Stara Maslina, which the munic­i­pal­ity of Bar gifted to selected guests, includ­ing King Charles III and his wife, Camila, in 2016 when he was still the Prince of Wales.

When the Bar munic­i­pal assem­bly put the study on the pro­tec­tion of Stara Maslina up for pub­lic dis­cus­sion four years ago, only the Bar Olive Growers Association sub­mit­ted writ­ten com­ments.

“Our first remark was that the con­crete threat­ens Stara Maslina and that the water it col­lects can per­ma­nently endan­ger its roots,” Alković said.

Unfortunately, the grow­ers’ warn­ing, some of whom have a 300-year fam­ily tra­di­tion of olive grow­ing, was not taken seri­ously.

“Also, at the begin­ning of the sum­mer of 2023, we pointed out the prob­lem of the with­er­ing of Stara Maslina, that is, the prob­lem of exces­sive water in its root sys­tem,” Alković said.

However, few peo­ple took the association’s warn­ing seri­ously. ​“Only Mirko Bujišić, assis­tant direc­tor of the Bar Cultural Center, wanted us to do some­thing, and he was the only one who tried to remove water from the root sys­tem since we did not have per­mis­sion to inter­vene, even though we knew what needed to be done,” Alković said.

In August 2023, Dušan Raičević, the pres­i­dent of the Bar munic­i­pal­ity, formed a com­mis­sion to man­age Stara Maslina, which did not include mem­bers of the Bar Olive Growers Association.

“Since then, the asso­ci­a­tion has had no infor­ma­tion about what is being done and how it is being done,” Alković said. ​“Even more wor­ry­ing is that the pres­i­dent formed the com­mis­sion in August, and the inter­ven­tion was expected to start in January next year. Those addi­tional five months in the water must have con­tributed to addi­tional dam­age to the roots.”

He believes that the drainage ditch con­struc­tion and pump instal­la­tion were suc­cess­ful. However, Alković adds that there is still water on the ground, albeit much less than before, but more than would be advis­able.

Like most olive grow­ers, he sug­gested remov­ing excess water from the root sys­tem; although recent inter­ven­tions have yielded results, the prob­lem has not been com­pletely solved.

“Our pro­posal is also the gen­eral pub­lic’s: to remove the con­crete ring around the Stara Maslina and the con­crete walls sur­round­ing the tree and to cre­ate the pre­req­ui­sites for the water to drain nat­u­rally,” Alković said.

He cites one of the old­est olive trees in neigh­bor­ing Croatia, Brijuni National Park, as an exam­ple. A sim­ple wooden fence sur­rounds it, and it is an incom­pa­ra­bly more sig­nif­i­cant tourist attrac­tion.

Alković also thinks the con­struc­tion of the tick­et­ing build­ing, which is meant to block the view of the tree from the street, pre­vents sun­light from reach­ing the tree’s base and has allowed weeds, includ­ing ole­an­der, to grow, which can also be harm­ful to the tree.

The Bar Olive Growers Association has an entirely dif­fer­ent approach and believes that the Stara Maslina should be open to view, not hid­den.

“The whole com­plex would cer­tainly be much nicer if the con­crete was removed and the grass was allowed to beau­tify the space,” Alković said.

“We are sure Stara Maslina would con­tinue to live and could be a big­ger tourist attrac­tion if the con­crete around it were removed,” he added. ​“We should also remove the ole­an­der that sur­rounds it, which we know can be harm­ful.”