The Council of Mallorca is currently drafting a law for the Tramuntana Mountains, a key objective of which will be the recovery of farmland in order to protect the UNESCO-recognised landscape.
The law, which will have to be passed by the Balearic Parliament, will oblige the Tramuntana Mountains Consortium (Council, government, town halls) to promote one-time farmland, much of which has been abandoned and become forest, mainly pine forest.
This not only represents a transformation of a landscape created over centuries by different cultures - a reason for the UNESCO declaration as a World Heritage Site - it also poses a significant risk due to the spread of forest fires.
To identify as many areas as possible where cultivated fields used to be located, landowners must verify their existence, either through the presence of live olive trees (even if they are within a forest), the existence of dry-stone structures, or the visibility of agricultural activity in aerial photographs from 1956.
Each of these, the Council says, will confirm that there once was agricultural land and so enable it to be recovered. Antoni Solivellas, the mayor of Escorca, who is the director for the mountains, explains that if land has since been classified as forest, a review of this classification may be requested so as to facilitate recovery.
Toni Fuster of the Council's presidency department says: "The Serra de Tramuntana cannot be understood without the agricultural activity that has shaped it for centuries. Recovering old crops is essential to preserving the landscape and for ensuring local production and cultural legacy."