Thousand-year-old olive trees proposed as world heritage

Olive oil, the liquid gold of the Mediterranean, has played an important part in the history of this part of the world for millennia. And, there are living beings that may well have contributed to this. Indeed, in the very south of Catalonia, in the county of Montsià, are olive trees that have lived for thousands of years. And now, the Commonwealth of the Terres del Sénia has put forth a petition for them to be recognized as part of the Important Systems of the World Agriculture Heritage (SIPAM).

The result of six months of work, the petition was passed through the Ministry of Culture which will, this week, present it to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO). If successful, it will become part of the equivalent to the UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity, thanks to its agricultural system “unique to the world” including more than 10,000 olive trees, around half of which have been dated as being thousands of years old. This denomination would also, said the Commonwealth, help to approve a legislation to protect these thousand-year-old plants. The resolution of the petition is expected to be decided on towards the end of the year, possibly by November 2018.