When we bought our house in Calabria, we were not thinking about conservation. We wanted freedom, quiet, distance and no immediate neighbours. Perhaps we also wanted to turn up the large stereo without disturbing anyone.
Years later we bought the first piece of land because our access road crossed it. That started a chain reaction. More plots were offered to us. Nature was not fragmented; ownership was. What was worthless to many became part of a whole for us.
Some plots belonged to ten or more people, and sometimes the notary cost more than the land. When my architect friend showed me a three-page parcel list, he laughed: “You are the new Baron of Sambrase.” Only then did I see what had emerged.
Today buzzards circle above the hill. Swallows drink from the pool, wagtails use the waterfall as a sushi bar, and bee-eaters cross the sky. At night come wild boar, badgers, foxes and even wolves. They do not want people. They want peace.
We did not create nature. We left it alone. The sun gives power, the well gives water, the wood gives warmth, the garden gives fruit and the land gives animals space. We take what we need, but not everything.
After selling my dental practice I could have invested the money. Instead, part of it now lies beneath our feet as landscape. In summer it is enough to sit by the pool or on the terrace. Nature’s presence is the greatest thanks.
Perhaps it was never our plan. Perhaps it was nature’s plan. We wanted freedom, and nature made use of that freedom too. The greatest wealth is not extracting as much as possible from land, but leaving something to it.
We had instinctively done the right thing. We understood its meaning only more than twenty years later. Without a programme. Without a flag. Without feeling superior. And yet it was right.
