The Monchique
Stewardship System

Ten years of farming the Serra de Monchique produced a working system for restoring productive, fire-resilient land. We built it because nothing comparable existed for this landscape.

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Personal essays on food, health and regenerative farming in the Serra de Monchique — written as we go.

We did not come to Monchique with answers.

We came here to live.

Over the years that followed, we found ourselves becoming increasingly connected to the land around us — its soils, water, trees, animals, seasons and, inevitably, its fires.

Much of what we have learned has not come from textbooks or formal education. It has come from observation, agricultural experience, mistakes, conversations, necessity and simply spending years working outside.

• We have watched water move across terraces.
• We have seen exhausted soils begin to recover.
• We have watched vegetation respond to animals and management.
• We have experienced drought, extreme heat and wildfire.
• We have seen abandoned land become progressively more difficult and expensive to bring back under management.

And gradually we began asking questions that extended beyond the boundaries of our own farm.

• What is happening to the landscape of Monchique?
• Why is so much land no longer actively managed?
• What would make people want to work that land again?

And perhaps most importantly: what can ordinary landowners actually do about it?

These questions eventually led us towards what we now call the Monchique Stewardship System.

But before explaining that, there is something more important we should say.

A Community That Welcomed Us

When we came to Monchique, we arrived as outsiders. We brought different experiences, different ideas and, initially, very little understanding of what it truly meant to live and work in these mountains.

What we found was a community that welcomed us.

Over the years, the kindness, patience, knowledge and friendship of the people around us have allowed us not simply to live here, but to become part of a place that we now hold very dear.

Monchique has given us the space to flourish, to learn and to grow.

Much of what we understand about this landscape has come not only from working the land ourselves, but from conversations, friendships, observations and knowledge generously shared by people who knew these mountains long before we did.

We remain newcomers compared with families whose roots here extend through generations, and we should never forget that.

Perhaps that is also why we feel such a responsibility towards the future of this place.

The Stewardship System is not an attempt to tell Monchique what it should become. It is our attempt to give something back to a community and landscape that have given so much to us.

We hope to contribute what we have learned while continuing to listen to and learn from the people around us.

We came here looking for a place to live. Somewhere along the way, Monchique became home.

We Are Not Experts

We are not academics. We are not foresters, economists, sociologists or policymakers.

We do not pretend to understand all the forces that have shaped Monchique, and we certainly do not claim to possess the solution to its problems.

Our perspective is inevitably limited. It has largely been formed with boots on the ground — working with soil, water, vegetation, animals and machinery and dealing with the practical realities of maintaining land in these mountains.

Only later did we begin comparing some of our observations with academic research and public policy concerning Monchique and the wider Portuguese landscape.

What we found surprised us.

The language was different. The methods were different. The depth of research was certainly different.

But many of the underlying conclusions and questions were remarkably familiar.

Researchers were discussing rural depopulation, ageing, agricultural abandonment, wildfire vulnerability, landscape management, economic viability and community participation.

We had approached many of those same subjects from the other direction — simply by asking ourselves why the landscape around us was changing and what might realistically be done about it.

That does not turn our observations into scientific evidence. Nor does it prove that we are right. It simply gives us confidence that these are questions worth continuing to ask.

The Land Is Still Teaching Us

Perhaps the most important principle behind the Stewardship System is therefore not an agricultural technique at all.

It is humility.

We are learning. We will get things wrong. Ideas that appear sensible today may prove ineffective tomorrow. Something that works beautifully on one property may fail completely on another. And when evidence contradicts something we believe, it is our belief that must be reconsidered.

The Stewardship System must therefore never become fixed doctrine. Its method should be:

Observe. Understand. Question. Prioritise. Try. Measure. Learn. Adapt.

We should apply that principle not only to the land, but to the Stewardship System itself.

Guardians of the Soil

There is, however, one responsibility about which we feel strongly.

For however long land is under our control, we are its temporary guardians. We did not create its soils. We did not create its springs, valleys, forests or biodiversity. And ultimately, none of it truly belongs to us forever.

Our responsibility is to leave those things in better condition than we found them.

For us, that begins with soil and water.

Healthy soil is not simply something in which crops grow. It is living infrastructure.

• It stores water.
• It cycles nutrients.
• It supports plants.
• It supports animals.
• It captures carbon.
• And ultimately it supports us.

So although our ambitions may extend beyond our property boundaries, our first responsibility remains very close to home: look after the soil beneath our own feet.

Before We Prescribe the Treatment

There is a saying commonly attributed to Hippocrates suggesting that before healing someone, we should ask whether they are prepared to give up the things that made them sick. The attribution itself is uncertain, but the principle is worth considering.

Before prescribing treatment, understand the causes.

That seems equally relevant to landscapes.

If land is being abandoned, simply clearing it does not answer why it became abandoned. If younger people do not see a future in agriculture or land management, telling them they should return to the land achieves very little. If local production cannot compete economically with large-scale supply chains, asking farmers simply to work harder is not an answer. If people value convenience, condemning convenience will not change their behaviour.

Before deciding what Monchique needs, perhaps we should first understand what is preventing the landscape and its communities from thriving already.

Stewardship Must Earn Its Place

We also need to be careful with the word stewardship. It is our terminology. We should not presume that Monchique wants a 'stewarded landscape' simply because we believe it would be beneficial. Nor should we present the Stewardship System as the way forward. It is a possible way forward.

If we believe stewardship has value, our responsibility is to demonstrate that value.

• Can better soil management retain more water?
• Can animals help manage vegetation?
• Can biomass become a resource?
• Can abandoned terraces become productive again?
• Can food production help finance landscape management?
• Can biodiversity and productive agriculture strengthen one another?
• Can active management contribute towards wildfire resilience?
• Can all of this be achieved without making the physical and financial demands upon the landowner unrealistic?

These questions should be tested rather than preached.

A Landscape Must Also Provide a Future

A landscape cannot survive indefinitely on goodwill.

People need livelihoods. Young people need opportunities. Families need incomes. Landowners need some reason to invest their time, money and physical effort into managing their properties.

If the easier and more secure future always lies somewhere else, we should not be surprised when younger generations leave.

So our vision for Monchique is not simply a greener landscape.

It is a living landscape.

• One that produces.
• One that employs.
• One that feeds people.
• One that retains water.
• One that protects its soils.
• One that supports biodiversity.
• One that is increasingly resilient to wildfire.
• And, importantly, one in which young people can look around them and see opportunity.

If we want the next generation to remain in Monchique, there must be something worth remaining for.

Many Communities, Many Forms of Knowledge

One of Monchique's great strengths is the extraordinary variety of people who have chosen to make these mountains their home.

Alongside families whose connection with the land reaches back generations is an international community bringing experiences and ideas from many different countries and cultures.

Within that community there is considerable interest in permaculture, ecological living, organic production, natural building, food growing and alternative approaches to land management.

We want to reach out to them too. Not because any one philosophy contains all the answers — it does not.

• Permaculture brings valuable thinking about design and relationships within systems.
• Regenerative agriculture brings another perspective.
• Traditional Portuguese land management contains generations of accumulated knowledge.
• Forestry contributes another.
• Ecology another.
• Farmers bring the practical reality of whether something works when confronted with terrain, weather, animals, machinery, time and money.
• Scientists can test assumptions and help us understand mechanisms we cannot see.
• Public organisations understand the wider landscape, regulation and policy.

We need all of them.

The Stewardship System should not become another tribe defending its particular philosophy. It should be a place where useful ideas can meet.

We Want to Work With Monchique, Not Lecture It

This distinction matters deeply to us.

We are relatively recent arrivals compared with families who have lived here for generations. It would be extraordinarily presumptuous to arrive and tell those communities how Monchique should be managed.

That is not our intention.

We want to listen. We want to learn. We want to share what we discover. We want our assumptions challenged. We want to work alongside people already doing important work here.

And where organisations, researchers, farmers, permaculture practitioners, foresters or local residents possess knowledge greater than ours, we want to learn from them.

Our contribution can be practical: what happens when ideas actually meet the land?

Raízes da Montanha — Our Classroom

This is where Raízes da Montanha becomes important. It is not intended to become a monument to the Stewardship System.

It is our classroom.

We can establish where we started. We can photograph it. Measure what we reasonably can. Record what we spend. Explain why we make particular decisions. Try different approaches. Watch what happens. And share the results.

When something succeeds, we can show it. When something fails, we should show that too.

Failure honestly recorded may be every bit as useful to another landowner as success.

Over time, perhaps those experiences can provide some of the practical meat on the bones that an individual landowner needs when standing at the entrance to an overgrown property wondering: Where do I start?

A Framework, Not a Rulebook

That is ultimately what we hope the Monchique Stewardship System might become.

• Not a rulebook.
• Not a competing institution.
• Not a replacement for professional expertise.
• And certainly not a declaration that we know how Monchique should be managed.

Rather, a practical framework that helps individual landowners understand their land, identify their priorities and develop their own Land Stewardship Plan.

• Where specialist expertise is required, the framework should help people recognise that and seek it.
• Where traditional knowledge provides an answer, we should respect it.
• Where scientific evidence improves our understanding, we should use it.
• Where practical experience contradicts our assumptions, we should investigate why.
• And where somebody else has a better idea, we should listen.

The Monchique We Hope For

We love this place. That is ultimately why we care.

We would like to see a Monchique whose soils are improving rather than degrading.

• Whose water is slowed, spread, stored and valued.
• Whose landscape produces food and livelihoods.
• Whose forests and agricultural areas are actively cared for.
• Whose biodiversity flourishes.
• Whose communities grow stronger.
• Whose young people see opportunities worth staying for.
• And whose landscape becomes progressively more resilient to wildfire.

Those ambitions are enormous. We certainly do not have the answers necessary to achieve them.

But perhaps we can contribute something.

• We can look after the land entrusted to us.
• We can observe.
• We can experiment.
• We can measure.
• We can share.
• We can listen.
• And we can invite others into the conversation.

The Monchique Stewardship System therefore begins not with an answer, but with a question:

“How can all of us who care about this landscape help create a thriving, productive and resilient Monchique for those who will inherit it?”

We do not know the answer. But we would very much like to help find it.

A way of
seeing the world.

Fourteen parts.
One living system.

Each part can be read independently or as a chapter in the complete guide. Together they set out the practice guidelines we have adopted at Raízes da Montanha and Quinta Picapau — drawn from our own experience in the Serra de Monchique, and offered as a starting point in the absence of any comparable guide for this landscape. We do not claim to have all the answers.

Thick smoke blotted out the sun for days, making breathing difficult and casting an eerie orange light across the landscape. The third image shows the scale of the fires as seen from space — nearly 27,000 hectares burned in Monchique alone.

Smoke and fire light above Quinta Picapau, August 2018

The farmhouse under smoke, with the fire approaching from the ridge above

The 2018 Monchique fires seen from space

The sun reduced to a pale disc through dense smoke, August 2018

The fire advancing through the Serra de Monchique, August 2018

Smoke filling the valley, visibility reduced to metres

The landscape under ash and smoke, Serra de Monchique, 2018

We are not taking bookings yet. The project is new, the land is being established, and we want to offer something of real value when the time is right. If this interests you, register below and we will be in touch when visits and courses open up.

We document our work as we go — sharing what works, what doesn't, and what surprises us. These are a few things we have been thinking about.