Working to recover the estate’s biodiversity
BIODIVERSITY
Working to recover the estate’s biodiversity
Oller del Mas which has, from the very beginning, been committed to sustainability and protecting the environment. With the aim of becoming a wine cellar respected around the world, we are assisting research projects and applying different initiatives with the aim of improving our work, becoming more sustainable and recovering biodiversity on the estate.
Since 2008, all production on the estate is organic. By not using chemical products and fertilisers on the vines, we help to protect biodiversity.
Working closely alongside Josep Illa from Phragmites and the Catalonian Department for the Environment, we strive to protect and guarantee the biodiversity pyramid on our estate.
At the second level we find the herbivores that eat the flora in the first level, including snails, mice, grasshoppers, worms and bats. This level is very important, and even more so for an estate with crops like vines. Bats are a natural way to control insect colonies on the vineyard. This is why we have installed 15 nesting boxes to encourage bats to breed and increase these colonies to help control the insects.
We have also begun to recover different areas of the estate, providing meadows and pastures where nightjars and nighthawks can nest and breed, helping them to multiply.
At the third level are all reptiles and amphibians. In this case many species of frog have been found on the Oller golf course including Graf’s frog, Mediterranean tree frogs, and parsley frogs (seen again after 24 years without a sighting).
At the fourth level, are all the omnivores and predators such as the fox, found in high numbers in our forests. Here we also see the eagle-owl, a species recovered in our area and very important for maintaining the biodiversity balance.
Finally, at the top of the pyramid, we find the omnivores and predators. On our estate these include the Bonelli’s eagle, a species in danger of extinction. A nest was identified at Oller (we prefer to keep the exact location secret to guarantee they are left undisturbed) and then, working with conservationists from the Department for the Environment, a series of measures were adopted to protect the nest. There are currently 65 nesting pairs in all of Catalonia, and one of them is in Oller del Mas!
We can thus say that our pyramid currently has 5 levels and this shows that the estate has found the right balance of flora and fauna. But we cannot rest on our laurels but instead stay motivated to keep working to improve our environment. This is why we are working with the firm company Phragmites on a 15-year project to continue improving our environment.