- The forest was sinking, the forest was rising. Let us not remember what should be the centrepiece of our future environmental policy, until the fire did not open. Now, after the disgraceful fire in Portugal, the forest is on everyone's lips. Blue eucalyptus (Eucalyptus globulus), black pine (Pinus radiata), with indigenous or external species... Yes, we have to talk, propose, commit, agree and channel the future of the forest. But just as the area of the land affected by fire is renewed and restored, the purity of fire must be done once it has passed.
In Purialdia there is also a new way of looking at the forest. It is called “edible forest” a new vision of agriculture that is expanding in recent years. Almost until yesterday the forest has been the basis of our way of life. We have obtained energy (wood, branch, coal, butter...), water, wood for materials, plants and beliefs to maintain rites and spirituality, submatter for inventions (zarba, garo, orbel...), pastures and fodder for cattle, medicines (grass, roots...) and food for us (mushrooms, plants, animals, fruits...).
In this use of food production, a lot of people are thinking about creating a forest that generates a lot of food in the future. How to design, create and maintain edible forests? Two conditions: where that forest will live and what we want to collect afterwards. Depending on them, adaptations and plantations are carried out. In fact, there's a lot to grow. To begin with, these are trees and trees: known fruit trees, but also unknown or abandoned: otsolizar, gurbea, basagurbea, hostazuru, madroño, bat, maaltza; robles that give bellotas, madroños, holm oaks, cork oaks, etc. ; pines that give pine nuts, beech... Shrubs are also very prosperous donors: zarzal, endalaharra, cranberry, raspberry, squirrel, spider, laurel...
Besides food creator, I believe that it will be the forest creator who thinks of other uses: leisure, didactic, ethnobotany, cultural landscape...