Water into the soil / Manfred-Hermsen-Stiftung

The survival of the special wildlife and plant habitats on Mount Etna and in its river valleys depends to a large extent on small-scale farming which extends as far as the riverbanks. As we are dealing with privately owned land that is still largely used in a near-natural way, but subject to an ongoing intensification process, we are trying to convince the farmers to continue or reintroduce regenerative and biodiversity-promoting methods. In times of increasing weather extremes, we consider the solution to be a combination of traditional and innovative techniques with a focus on healthy soil, which promise profitability for farmers and diversity for nature. We carry out experiments and illustrative good practice methods on fields of our local partner organization Giacche Verdi Bronte.

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Land purchases
Project Water into the soil

Background

The project area extends in a semicircle around the northern part of Mount Etna to the southern part of the Nebrodi Mountains. Between these two areas, protected as nature parks, there is still a great structural diversity between and on the many small farm fields of different crops. Embankments, wild patches and fallow land, hedges, rocks and stone walls provide a habitat for insects, reptiles, birds, and mammals. The river valleys are an important eco-corridor between the nature parks and ensure the survival of the rare wildcat, which has its own subspecies in Sicily, as well as other species, some of these being endemic. We advocate the establishment of a UNESCO biosphere reserve here:
„Terre della Biosfera – le valli fluviali dell’Etna“.

Land purchases for Nature conservation

Together with our local partner Giacche Verdi Bronte, we have been adding a new quality to our work since 2020, which previously focused mainly on advocacy, marketing support, political engagement and environmental education for children: We are creating our own model fields where nature-friendly, biodiversity-promoting and carbon-binding measures are tested and demonstrated to local farmers at field workshops.

Our five small plots of land cover a total of 5.7 hectares and are mainly planted with olives, pistachios and almond trees. They are located below the town of Bronte on the River Simeto in the Natura 2000 area “Forre laviche del Fiume Simeto”.

In 2024, we enabled Giacche Verdi to purchase the two plots 4 and 5, which border directly on the river Simeto. Plot 4 covers 13,800 square meters and is planted with 96 olive trees, 30 pistachio trees and 250 almond trees. A path separates it from an overgrown strip of bushes and wildflowers, which was to be preserved as a hiding place, retreat and food source for animals through a later purchase.

An intensively used olive grove separates the uncultivated strip from our second new 7,860 square meter field plot (5), on which 21 olive and 6 almond trees grow in the lower area. Towards the river, the plot is overgrown with bushes.

The plots of land each include a room within a historically valuable, mostly decaying farmstead nearby.

One of the two rooms is so well preserved that we want to gradually renovate it with the help of our volunteers and then use it as a meeting point for school classes on excursions. Ideally, they are next to each other and directly adjacent to a ruin of a room already owned by Giacche Verdi.

In addition to promoting biodiversity, we also aim to create a future source of income for Giacche Verdi Bronte in order to make the NGO less dependent on project grants.

The only yield from Giacche Verdi's land this year was around 500 kg of almonds, which were traditionally harvested by hand with the active help of our volunteers. The entire olive harvest in the region was lost due to the heat and prolonged drought this year. This shows the urgency of building up humus and storing water in the soil.

Our volunteers learn the traditional way of harvesting almonds by cutting them off with the light sticks of the giant fennel

Water into the soil

This was the motto of our latest agricultural-ecological trials on the model fields: The most extensive measure concerned the creation of trenches and dams running across the slope to retain the moisture from rainfall in the soil in the long term. Once the soil had been dug up, it was immediately planted to stabilize it (horse beans, garlic) and Terra Preta was added to increase its water storage capacity.

A permanent green cover of soil is essential for water retention and soil health. We supplemented the spontaneous vegetation, some of which had dried out in the hot summer, in all fields with direct sowings of various legume mixtures, which were sown by hand with the help of the volunteers and carefully incorporated with minimal tillage.

For two years we were supported in humus-building field trials by the German ‘EUKI’ programme (European Climate Initiative). The most interesting measures included the creation of an irrigation pond for watering new plantings and ecological enhancement for wild animals and spontaneous vegetation as well as the production and processing of ‘Terra Preta’.

Terra Preta is a special fertiliser made from manure and biochar, invented thousands of years ago by Amazonian natives, which has the property of binding water and nutrients and slowly releasing them to the plants as required. The biochar component is also an extremely potent, almost permanent carbon store. We produce the biochar ourselves from tree cuttings using a simple pyrolysis process and show the farmers in the area this sensible use of their annual ‘waste’, which is usually burnt on site in the field.

Project homepage Humus per la Biosfera

– ecological and social demands in relation to CAP subsidies and obstacles

In the course of the reorientation of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) in 2020, we conducted a survey in our project region around Mount Etna together with NABU, LIPU and the University of Catania on the ecological and socio-economic situation and demands of small farmers working close to nature. Their final analysis and an accompanying letter from the University of Catania, which was sent to the Region of Sicily, among others, find recognition in new, more ecologically oriented support programmes (PSR Sicilia).

All project documents: Farming in Sicily’s Lands of Biosphere – Terre della Biosfera (terrebiosfera.org)

In cooperation with farmers around the Etna, we aim to maintain the valuable ‘bridge function’ for the wildcat between the protected habitats. This requires new approaches in agriculture - preferably organic - integrating the conservation of biodiversity as an obligatory objective in the management of the farm. This includes accepting (protected) wild animals - which is not taken for granted in Sicily.

Besides preserving existing refuges on the farming area, additional measures to increase biodiversity, such as wild areas, flower strips, stone walls, etc., are promoted in field studies and discussed with farmers.

The project started in 2010 with the development of criteria for nature conservation. “Le Piccole Terre“ distributes different first-class organic Olive Oils of the partner farms not only guaranteeing best quality standards but also accounting for enhancing nature conservation.

Our project partner, the Leibniz University Hannover is supporting the project with field studies and student courses, and drawing recommendations for conserving biodiversity in Sicily. The results of the studies also serve the development of generally applicable criteria for nature conservation in agricultural habitats.

Another partner is Giacche Verdi Bronte. Together with Manfred Hermsen-Stiftung Giacche Verdi offers young German volunteers to participate in a voluntary programme on Sicily that includes working in this project. Our volunteer programme allows the volunteers to contribute to the implementation of conservation measures.

A common interest of all parties is to meet the following project objectives:

Protection of small farms and habitat structures within and between the Etna Natural Park and the mountains of Nebrodi and Madonie
Promoting high-quality, regional agricultural products
Environmental education and awareness for nature conservation
Improvement of nature protection in rural areas
Integration of nature conservation measures in agricultural practices
Promotion of ecological, sustainable and natural farming methods in terms of: biodiversity protection / quality and health