When Esteban Moya, as a child, looked at the southern slope of Granada, he was always amazed. “I saw the Sierra Nevada mountain and how farms and houses with cypresses and trees grew, which reminded me of an Italian village.” The image left its mark on him, as he never tires of repeating, to the point that years later, as an adult, he decided to settle in La Zubia, the canvas of such a picturesque image and the place where Esteban, along with 40 neighbors, decided to sow their respect for nature by reforesting the mountain.
About fifty anonymous people, mostly from the San Antonio de La Zubia neighborhood, a municipality in the metropolitan area of Granada with 19,000 inhabitants, have decided to go to the mountains to give new meaning to the expression. For four years, they have been part of the so-called “forest battalion” that has already planted 200 trees in the neighborhood of the La Perdiz Neighborhood Association. Its visible leader is Esteban Moya, a man who loves nature and admits that he fell in love with it thanks to the places where he spent his childhood.
“Four of us started this project,” Andalucía tells elDiario.es. Initially, Moya, who was president of the aforementioned neighborhood association, joined forces with three other residents to carry out the task. The site that the journalist is visiting with the interviewees was until recently a barren land, covered only by a layer of thatch that is almost always dead. Today, it is green thanks to the trees that Esteban and his people have planted.
The first walnut, pine and chaparro trees (as oaks are called in this area) were planted with funds from the neighborhood association. Later, money came selflessly from those who joined the battalion and from some companies that, in exchange for the symbolic inscription of their name on the tree, contribute a certain amount of capital. “For our part, we estimate that we have invested around 2,000 euros during this period,” explains Moya.
Nothing is improvised. Everything follows a previous logic. Esteban, together with other members of the battalion, has demarcated the areas that belong to the public domain and where plantations can and should be made. Because that is another of their motivations: they want to change the landscape so that it stops being a wasteland. “You travel to other places like Asturias and you marvel at seeing so much greenery and then we don’t dare to do the same.”
Growing by sharing the project
Inspired by the reforestation campaigns carried out during the Second Republic and under Franco’s dictatorship, they also aim to honour those who gave them part of the picturesque image that Esteban himself enjoyed as a child. Fortunately, they have the support of the Zubia town hall, governed by the PSOE. “We are here for whatever you need. Anything goes to improve the land,” says Manuel Serrano, a technician at the Consistory and a “man of all trades” as he defines himself.
The Zubian City Council, which is collaborating by providing trees (it recently donated 60 walnut trees) and the means necessary for them to be watered, is showing its support for the initiative. The councilor for urban planning, José María Montoro, explains that “the municipality is providing the project with everything necessary: irrigation or machines to open holes of 40×40 centimeters, which are not small.” In addition, the government team is carrying out a double action in this regard: it is committed to professional and collaborative reforestation, in which the battalion is integrated.
“We have a programme of 30,000 trees for the green belt, with an approach that goes from institutional to participatory,” explains Montoro. “Each neighbourhood and association must take responsibility for its own repopulation, because if the neighbours take care of it, the success rate will be much higher.” In economic terms, support for this initiative already exceeds 15,000 euros, according to the councillor.
Although they need money to be able to plant the trees, they are clear that the goal is to collect just enough to avoid problems. “Money only attracts bad things, what we want is material,” Moya explains. Precisely, Carlos Arcas is another of the members of the battalion who gives the most meaning to the phrase. He himself has built some nests so that bats or swifts can fly through La Zubia again. “We hardly see them and when we were little they were everywhere. Without going any further, since there are hardly any bats, this summer we are all full of mosquito bites, which are their predators.”
Their action is choral. Designed so that the entire environment benefits. “I hope that people who see us will be inspired and want to do the same in their neighborhood,” says Esteban Moya. Their desire is not to continue increasing the number of neighbors, but to export the initiative. “Being too many can be counterproductive. “Anyone can take their hoe and plant a tree.”
If it hurts someone to see how the mountain burns, it hurts even more the inhabitants of the battalion. Just a few weeks ago, a group of young people set fire to a neighboring field and did the same to one of the slopes that overlook the area being replanted. “We feel very helpless and we can’t explain how someone could do that,” says Manuel Serrano, a technician at the town hall. “I myself managed to stop the flames so that they didn’t reach our trees,” confesses Esteban.
The legacy
Together, and with the support of the City Council, they plan to start a new reforestation for the month of November. The mayor of La Zubia, Purificación López, has made a long-term commitment to abandon 2,000 trees. “Someone has to put them. If there are four of us, we won’t be able to put that many, but if there are a few more of us, we can organize ourselves better,” says Esteban, who, on the other hand, does not want to be rushed. Each campaign can result in the planting of a maximum of 200 trees. “It is better to do a little and do it well than to want to go very far and not succeed.”
In the coming months, they plan to open a path to be able to walk next to the trees and, although they have dreamed of building stone benches, they rule out this possibility for fear that it would generate vandalism. “We don’t trust people not to come here and start drinking and dirtying everything,” says Carlos Arcas.
For this reason, they prefer to remain cautious and continue with a renaturalization project that does not even exclude the creation of a small artificial pond. A dream that seems within their reach and that they assume and hope to surpass them in life. “It is for those who come after. Let them know that each of us can change things.
