On Shores of Lake Garda, Volunteers Harvest Abandoned Trees for Charity

Abandoned olive groves in the hills that sur­round Lake Garda, in north­ern Italy, are being recov­ered by a group of vol­un­teers.

Isolated orchards and even scat­tered trees, many of which are sur­vivors of old olive groves that were destroyed to make way for con­struc­tion projects, are being har­vested by the vol­un­teers.

Lake Garda is an area char­ac­ter­ized by breath­tak­ing views of the country’s largest lake and home to the Garda PDO. And it is where hun­dreds of trees have been for­got­ten, left with fruit on their branches year after year.

By har­vest­ing the olives and pro­duc­ing extra vir­gin olive oil, which is donated to fam­i­lies in need, the vol­un­teers hope to show local insti­tu­tions and res­i­dents the oppor­tu­nity the for­got­ten trees present for the com­mu­nity.

“During the cur­rent pan­demic, when every­one is hit by its effects, with many peo­ple los­ing jobs and a spike in poverty among the gen­eral pop­u­la­tion, we have these trees, full of fruits, sur­rounded by thorns and often left to their fate by their own­ers,” said Davide Boni, one of the vol­un­teers from 2020ResetAll, a col­lec­tive and mem­ber of the munic­i­pal coun­cil of Toscolano Maderno.

“Still, they are a rel­e­vant source of wealth, a source that is being neglected and for­got­ten,” he told Olive Oil Times.

The trees revived recently lay inside a con­struc­tion site where work has been halted. Within an orange plas­tic fence around the site’s perime­ter, the trees are the rem­nants of an olive orchard that once dec­o­rated the hill.

“The local pre­fec­ture had already warned in a pub­lic state­ment how aban­doned olive trees con­sti­tute, among other things, a hygienic risk. Their crowns full of fruits are the per­fect habi­tat for the olive fruit fly,” Boni said.

Given the high-qual­ity extra vir­gin olive oil pro­duced in the area and the state of neglect of the site, the vol­un­teers crossed the fences and took care of the trees, har­vest­ing sev­eral quin­tals of olives.

“As we came down to our vil­lage with the olives, some elderly res­i­dents told us of other fields where trees were for­got­ten and needed har­vest­ing,” Boni said.

While the word of their work began to spread, the biggest hur­dle to over­come was bureau­cracy.

Since a new Covid-19 lock­down was declared in Lombardy, where the west­ern bank of the lake lies, the vol­un­teers could not move freely, just as the har­vest­ing sea­son was in full swing.

While estab­lished olive farm­ers were allowed to con­tinue their oper­a­tions dur­ing the lock­down, the work of the group’s vol­un­teers risked com­ing to a com­plete stop.

“Local police wanted us to ask for a pre­ven­tive per­mit to get to the fields, or to carry the olives to the oil mill,” Boni said. ​“So we had the idea to turn these exces­sive requests into fuel for our aware­ness cam­paign.”

“We signed a pub­lic appeal in my munic­i­pal­ity, Toscolano Maderno, ask­ing author­i­ties to not tam­per with the work of the vol­un­teers, who were com­mit­ted to take care of neglected olive trees that often lay on dif­fi­cult ter­rain – rocky and steep,” he added.

The pleas were shared through social media and were boosted even fur­ther when the pre­fec­ture warned farm­ers about the risks posed to estab­lished busi­nesses by the aban­doned orchards.

“It all hap­pened very fast since we got into that con­struc­tion site a few weeks ago,” Boni said. ​“The word spread and dozens of peo­ple have joined us to work on the trees.”

While the vol­un­teers are com­mit­ted to take care of the trees, they empha­sized how many more orchards are still left uncared for in the area.

“Many areas are vic­tims of the estate spec­u­la­tion that took place in the early 2000s on our hills,” Boni said. ​“But many trees are left there because they are the prop­er­ties of elderly peo­ple who can­not man­age them any­more, or have been inher­ited by younger folks who do not find a rea­son to har­vest the olives or take care of the trees.”

The vol­un­teers did not want to do the work of those who own the prop­er­ties but instead explained that they hope their actions ​“send a sig­nal to peo­ple and insti­tu­tions while they strug­gle against the pan­demic.”

Boni, who has also served as deputy mayor of Toscolano, empha­sized how the col­lec­tive ​“hopes to push those who have to make deci­sions to go for­ward in the right direc­tion.”

“We have no inter­est in becom­ing an offi­cial busi­ness. Our action is a polit­i­cal action to raise aware­ness,” he added. ​“We are giv­ing the olive oil to the social ser­vices of the munic­i­pal­i­ties where the olives were har­vested so it can ben­e­fit fam­i­lies in need, while also help­ing to spread the word about the neglected and rel­e­vant resources avail­able in our area.”

Some small bot­tles of olive oil will be offered by the col­lec­tive to the may­ors of the munic­i­pal­i­ties involved and to sev­eral other pub­lic offi­cials, with a let­ter explain­ing the ori­gin of the olive oil and the mean­ing of the vol­un­teers’ work.

“In the pan­demic sce­nario we live in, our work on the olives adheres to a logic of recon­nect­ing social activ­i­ties to insti­tu­tions, so as to finally work together for our com­mu­nity,” Boni said.

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