HEALING AND LIVING WITH THE LAND OF SAMOTHRACE
WHO WE ARE
We are two close friends that have given up on everything just so that we can be here on this island and work on realising our vision of living with the land while restoring it and taking care of it. Hopefully so it will be able to take care of us in return. We are also keen on strengthening the local community by restoring its heritage and its old wisdom.
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WHY SAMOTHRACE?
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Samothrace is maybe the only island in the Mediterranean to have such rich and lush nature. It holds the third tallest mountain of any Hellenic island and therefore it is blessed with plentiful supply of water. Years of EU subsidies and local neglect and overgrazing have brought this natural paradise to a serious situation of land erosion and degradation. If something is not done within the next 5 to 7 years we will reach a point of no return. We are still in a position today where land can be reclaimed, reforested and replanted with wild and agricultural plants.
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OUR MAIN GOAL
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The goal of the project is to regenerate the condition of the island and prevent the overgrazing and erosion of the earth. Our main drive is to establish a connection with the earth and heal it during this process.
The first priority is getting fencing put up and thus prevent goats from coming into the areas which are under threat. Once the fencing is set in we can bring in the irrigation to keep everything green and fresh during the summer. This is obviously not possible to do on a large scale at the moment we want to start on a small scale to show people what can be done and move on from there. If you feel inclined on helping us you can contact us.
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HOW TO GET THINGS STARTED?
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From a financial point of view we need to raise money for fencing and water piping to start with. Also we welcome people to get involved in the project. They do however need to be able to feed and support themselves. For the last four years me and my friend have been self funding the project from our own pockets with the assistance of friends and family. Unfortunately this means we have to spend long periods of time working outside of the project to earn money to cover the expenses it costs to stay and live on the island. Hopefully at the end of the day once the project is setup we will be free of these limitations since we will use our yurts (large canvass tents) for living in them and we have also many ideas on how we will be able to sustain both ourselves and the project outlined bellow.
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Experimental area within the location we want to regenerate (Argati) showcasing the transformative effect which 2-3 years worth of fencing and irrigation are capable of producing on otherwise barren, eroded and overgrazed land.
SUSTAINING THE PROJECT:
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Although rejuvenating and healing the land is our primary goal we understand we need to be flexible and multifaceted the same way nature is if we want to sustain ourselves and the project in the future. Here are the ideas we have in order to achieve our sustainability:
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MILKING GOATS & SHEEP
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•On the island of Samothraki there are around 60 thousand goats and 20 thousand sheep. From the goats i would say maybe only about 10 to 15 thousand of them are being milked. Therefore we have a vast resource which is not being used to its full capability. One of our aims is to work with the shepherds who are no longer milking their herds and turn up and start to milk the herds and tend the herds and turn the milk into cheese. We already have two shepherds we are working with currently, hopefully we will have more people joining us and we will be able to expand our milking endeavours to more herds and make use of the available resources.
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TANNING
•The skins from the animals are being thrown away here on the island because it is not profitable to do anything else with them. They can however be turned into leather and be used into making carpets, clothing, belts, bags, art and anything else that you use leather for.
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TAPPESTRY
•There is allot of wool available on the island as well, there are about 20 thousand sheep on the island and yet it is not financially viable for the shepherds to commercialise this abundance of wool. So unfortunately it gets thrown away. If this wool was sheared, washed, spun, dyed and weaved into traditional Samothracean carpets. (That used to be a tradition here in the old days.) You suddenly have an end-product which has a value. One of our aims is to start this traditional skill of making carpets with the wool available. We have people here on the island which still know this tradition so we are hoping to use their expertise and their knowledge to teach other people who are willing and want to learn this skill of carpet making.
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UNPASTEURISED "LIVING" CHEESE
The milk that we gather from the goats will predominantly be used to make cheese which we make according to traditional Samothracean procedure. This does not include pasteurisation, one of the things we are trying to promote is living food that contains living bacteria living cultures. When you buy your feta cheese from the supermarket even if it is exceptionally good quality because it has been pasteurised it kills the good bacteria as well as the bad bacteria. That means that the cheese goes off very quickly if not kept in the right conditions and in a fridge. The unpasteurised cheese we produce is still full of living bacteria it therefore can be kept outside of the fridge for up to two years as long as it is kept in its own special whey water. So one of the things we are trying to do is promote living food, food that contains living cultures even if this means that we have to work outside of EU regulations and sell our products and our food from person to person.
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All of the above projects can provide funding to the persons involved but most importantly keep funding the project and sustain its growth so that hopefully one day we can protect the whole island.
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A member of our milking herd in Paleapoli.
We are keen on making our own tapestry designs through working with old traditional methods.
We have already started making our own own "living" unpasteurised feta.
LONG TERM PROJECT GOALS
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EMPLOYMENT FOR LOCALS
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•A better environment for the people to live in, employment in the future for locals who wish to work on the land and agriculture.
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CREATE ECO-TOURISM OPTIONS
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•A new kind of tourism called eco-tourism, people who want to come here and enjoy the island, its natural beauty, unspoiled habitat while experiencing what it is like to live WITH the land.
RESTORING THE NATURAL HABITAT
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•We want to return peoples pride in their island. Many of the people here take its natural resources and beauty for granted. I have had conversations with the locals telling me how the island used to be like 30-40 years ago and the difference now is stunning for them.
The younger generations never saw the island back then, so for them it appears to be green and beautiful. We want to try and restore the island as much as possible and bring forth its former self. Show people that live here on the island that they have something special. Most people know that it is very special we want to improve on it, work with the local people and be part of the community. We don’t want to set up something separate from the community, the community is Samothrace all we are doing is bringing in people from outside who love the place have fallen in love with the place. We want to bring in new skills, new ideas, fresh blood, new energy, and to work hand in hand with the existing community to turn the place into a showpiece. Something which the locals can be proud of and something that Samothrace can be known for.
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ORGANIC CERTIFICATION
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•One of our long term goals is to try to get within the next 10 years complete biologic / organic product certification it would be amazing if the island would be the first organic island in the Mediterranean. We have been working with people from the Vienna university who have connections to the UNESCO Biosphere project. We also have people working in the Lisbon university. These people can help us. If we can get Samothrace to have its own organic certification and be the first organic island that would be amazing.
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SPREADING THE GOODNESS
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•In the long term we would like to see the project grow from here and move to other places around the world were they have similar problems of land erosion and degradation whether it is due to neglect, farming or overgrazing.
We would like to bring people close with the earth through eco-tourism.
Restoring the land includes lots of sapling planting in places where most of the damage has been done.
We want to make Samothrace the first 100% organic island.
AVAILABLE ASSETS
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PALEAPOLI
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The main herd of goats we have is about 300 strong and is located in the area of Paleapoli. The land we have at Paleapoli is actually both sides of the mountain there, and is fully fenced, it is about 100 thousand square meters give or take. It is a very large area, there is also a forest there, the forest needs clearing tending and replanting.
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GREENHOUSES
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We also have about 6 thousand square meters worth of greenhouses. They do need allot of repair. We spent last winter working on them with my friend, installing a new hydroponic system. It is not organic but we do not use any pesticide sprays and we only use naturally sourced fertilisers, so fertilisers which are naturally found in the environment as opposed to chemically synthesised fertilisers. Also near the greenhouses there is about another 6 thousand square meters of what could be prime agricultural land.
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ARGATI
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The abandoned valley of Argati where we have about 40-50 thousand square meters available to us offers some of the most fertile land. This is the area we first want to fence in and irrigate to show to the locals what is possible and from there we can move on to larger pieces of land and rejuvenate those as well.
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EQUIPMENT
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We have one Industrial milking machine from Turkey available.
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We have 2 industrial sheep shears available.
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And 6 yurts (large canvass tents) of various sizes, suitable as a home.
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We also have a Jeep and a trailer.
Our unused milking machine.
One of our two industrial shears.
This dilapidated house is located at the Argati valley, it is a candidate for future renovation.
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CONTACT
If you are interested in some more information regarding the project and/or helping us through participating or funding please contact us here: