The researcher Pilar Burillo defines the term demotanasia as the process by which political actions or inaction lead to the disappearance of the population of a territory. Death by depopulation is slow and silent. It is merciless with the territory, nature and heritage. The situation is no less dramatic for the people who live or, rather, resist in rural areas. Those who live in the most absolute solitude in a silent, silenced and misnamed empties lands. In reality, it is not yet empties.
Europe is the most ageing continent in the world. One of the regions most affected by ageing according to Eurostat is Galicia. There is a high percentage of elderly people with a lack of residential autonomy or with a certain degree of dependency who are reluctant to leave the land where they have lived all their lives. They live alone where care and assistance are conspicuous by their absence. Extremely worrying social contexts in the face of insufficient resources on the part of the administration and the passivity, full of implicit violence, of the political actors involved. A large part of the ageing population is abandoned in these areas with a lack of care and very limited social and health care coverage.
These are traditionally smallholding territories due to the sinuous orography that makes intensive production impossible. The current voracious market of macro-production and over-production, the lack of quality telecommunications and connections means that the demographic pyramid in most of the territories is inverted. There are population centres where the pyramid does not even have a base due to the low birth rate and the massive rural exodus.
The depopulation of rural areas is one of the causes of numerous environmental problems, such as the increased voracity of forest fires. The land is no longer used for grazing or cultivation and is occupied by intensive plantations of highly pyrophilous exotic species. In the middle of the last century, dams were built that flooded entire villages and regions, directly driving out their inhabitants, to supply the energy needs of the cities.Without taking into account the social and environmental cost. This is still happening today, but now it is happening with macro wind farms that indirectly expel the population and affect the environment.
If there are no changes in this respect: the death of the last rural inhabitants will bring with it the death of a social model and then they will be an empties territories.
A sunflower field scorched by record-breaking heat and veiled in fog illustrates the toll of climate change Europe experienced its hottest summer on record in 2024 with agricultural yields dropping up to 20 in some regions while extreme heatwaves are now five times more likely due to human-driven global warming
Olga looks at the first rays of sunshine through the window after getting out of bed Without the people who care for the land everything risks disappearing giving way to vast plantations of foreign timber species that threaten both ecosystems and local livelihoods
Fernando s hens in the countryside Precariousness is present in rural environments Those who live off the land have a hard time economically What saves me is that I hardly spend on food because I eat everything I produce and my animals produce says Fernando
Adela and Manuel are the last inhabitants of a village that once had 13 inhabited houses Adela and Manuel finish the wintry and rainy day playing cards guarding the animals and collecting eggs from their chickens
House abandoned after the death of the elderly person who lived there Inside everything was left as she left it
Olga is 91 years old and despite her age she walks several kilometres around her village every day Her son who used to live in the city has had to return to the village where only they are left to look after her
Jos prepares his food He lives alone in A Fonsagrada despite his advanced age and difficulty of movement
Domingo picks potatoes to make food Domingo is 88 years old and lives alone in an isolated village in A Fonsagrada The zero-kilometer economy was respectful of the environment
Working day of one of the last shepherds of Manzaneda Manolo de Palleir s The goats and sheep spend the summer in the curro an enclosure where they sleep and eat grass from the meadows during the day The Palleir s brothers take turns to be with them in the mountain for days Pastoralists and their herds help protect the forest from wildfires acting as natural brush-clearers
Domingo is 88 years old and lives alone in an isolated village in A Fonsagrada He lights the wood stove on a cold winter night
A hundred-year-old tree burns in the most important fire in the history of Galicia The fire is advancing out of control towards the village of Folgoso do Courel The village has been evacuated for fear of being burnt to the ground as has happened to nearby villages br br Galicia is one of the regions with the highest number of forest fires in Europe This is because the rural exodus led to a continuum of alien and pyrophytic species instead of the traditional mosaic landscape that stopped forest fires in the past
Several firemen working directly against the advancing fire After several days the fire is still out of control br br Galicia is one of the regions with the highest number of forest fires in Europe This is because the rural exodus led to a continuum of alien and pyrophytic species instead of the traditional mosaic landscape that stopped forest fires in the past