Four years ago, the state handed over fields that had been confiscated from the Camorra clan of Casalesi to an Italian social cooperative. Now it's on a mission to restore life to the land.
Category
🗞
NewsTranscript
00:00 The land of fires. Once one of Europe's largest illegal dumps just 36 kilometres north of
00:07 the Italian city of Naples. Otherwise known as the triangle of death, this region is infamous
00:13 for its high cancer-related mortality rate. The Camorra criminal organisation used to
00:19 dispose and burn waste here after the regional dumps in the area reached capacity. Once an
00:24 unsupportive wasteland, these fields now breathe new life. And it's all thanks to the Terra
00:29 Felix initiative and the cultivation of the cardoon thistle, which boosts soil fertility
00:34 and the growth of mushrooms. Terra Felix is now on a mission to restore 12 hectares of
00:39 land.
00:41 We are a social cooperative, so we have a moral duty, but we have it in our statute,
00:48 to work to create opportunities for the most vulnerable. So when we think of a project,
00:55 we think first of their involvement in the project and then of everything else.
00:59 But the work doesn't come without its challenges. A few weeks ago, some of the land was set
01:04 alight.
01:05 This is the result of the painful fire that destroyed 7 hectares of Terra Felix. Obviously
01:11 some people don't want this land to be happy again, but the healthy part of the population
01:17 of these territories continues to work on their own land.
01:22 And that's where these state-of-the-art or 4.0 greenhouses come in. Humidity and temperature
01:27 detectors calculate how much water these plants need. The aim is to produce one tonne of mushrooms
01:33 here every month. From replanting the fields to automated greenhouses, the cooperative
01:38 has grown from strength to strength, but it still has a long way to go.
01:43 With our work, we want to make a piece of this road so that the beautiful can emerge,
01:50 so that what Terra Felix can really give can emerge.
01:58 These scorched fields might serve as a setback, but the collective says it is determined to
02:03 see its work through to the end.
02:06 (whooshing)