Armed with pickaxes, shovels and scissors, about twenty volunteers climb the rocky path that leads from the village of Aldeanueva de la Vera (Spain) in Extremadura to the Sierra de Tormantos. This Saturday in November, this colorful group of small farmers, retirees and young neo-rurals are united in the same mission: the restoration of an acequia, an ancient irrigation canal.
“We will sow the water,” corrects the secretary of the Ocho Caños Irrigation Community, José Antonio Jimenez, with a smile as he walks at a brisk pace under a bright sky. Thanks to the acequias, we will ensure that the water seeps underground like a sponge and circulates slowly in the water tables, instead of draining, flowing down the rivers and getting lost in the Tagus and then in the sea. ” This is how water is kept on the territory and “harvested” in the summer when it is absent.
Excavated between the 8th and 10th centuries, In Muslim times, thousands of acequias channeled water from rivers, rain and snowmelt to gravity-fed fields and villages in Spain for centuries before falling into disuse from the 1960s.
Members of the Ocho Caños irrigation community restore an “acequia” in Aldeanueva de la Vera (Spain), November 5, 2022. CESAR DEZFULI FOR THE WORLD
Jesus Valleros and José Antonio Jimenez, President and Secretary of the Ocho Caños Irrigation Community, in Aldeanueva de la Vera (Spain), November 5, 2022. CESAR DEZFULI FOR THE WORLD
In recent years, faced with the effects of climate change and advised by a group of researchers, around fifty irrigation communities – groups of landowners with water supply rights – from Andalusia, Extremadura, Castile and León and Castilla-La Mancha have decided to proceed with their restoration.
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“It’s not snowing like it used to be. However, the gradual melting of the snow has allowed the availability of water to increase over time, explains the president of the Ocho Caños irrigation community, Jesus Valleros, a 63-year-old former farm worker. It is urgent to find another way to save water in the area, because in summer we can go three or four months without a drop of rain. »
” Immediate effect “
After two hours of walking, the small group grabs their tools and begins clearing a furrow Land, flat, less than a meter wide, overgrown with scrub and stones, winding up the mountainside. Unrecognizable to a layman, the acequia is known by the village elders as the Pesquera de Navalajarre. “When I was young, these meadows were always populated by herds of goats and the shepherds took care of the care of the pesquera so that they remained green,” recalls Mr. Valleros, wearing a cap and short sleeves under the autumn sun.
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