The Christmas Torches of Abbadia: Sustainable Resource Management According to an Ancient Traditions

This clip is my first attempt at a video on the subject of this blog, resource management. The results are, well, not so great: it is dark and the audio is not very good. I'll see to do better next time, but it seems to me that the clip is at least understandable and it gives some idea of the atmosphere of the torch burning festival of the town of Abbadia San Salvadore in Italy. In the video, I make some comments on the reasons for this tradition, but you can also read the text, below. Many thanks to Viola Calignano for filming.

An ancient tradition of the town of Abbadia San Salvadore, in Tuscany, involves a spectacular festival of wood burning that takes place the night before Christmas. This year, 28 wood torches ("fiaccole") went up in flames, most of them several meters tall and burning well into the next morning. I was there, guest of a family of Badenghi, the way the inhabitants of the place call themselves.

The event was truly fascinating, not a spectacle for tourists but something deeply felt by the locals. It is said that this tradition goes back to more than a millennium ago, to the times of Charlemagne. But why celebrate Christmas by burning so much wood to heat nothing in particular? I have to say that I found the question perplexing, considering that I often try to explain to people that biomass burning is not a solution to the energy problem. But then, after some head-scratching, I think I understood the reasons for this tradition. 

First of all, there is a certain fascination in seeing things burning. I think this is something that goes back to our paleolithic ancestors and that we still carry in our genes. But it is more than that. The Abbadia tradition is, actually, something akin to the "potlatch" of the North-Western native Americans. You probably know what a potlatch is, but let me report a description from Wikipedia, here.

 A potlatch involves giving away or destroying wealth or valuable items in order to demonstrate a leader's wealth and power. Potlatches are also focused on the reaffirmation of family, clan, and international connections, and the human connection with the supernatural world.

Clearly, this is a perfect description of the Fiaccole festival in Abbadia San Salvatore. It is a form of potlatch, where people demonstrate their wealth by wasting some of the resources that make them live, wood.

Think about that from the perspective of what Abbadia must have been during the Middle Ages. It is a town that sits on the side of the wooded Amiata mountain, surely inhabited mainly by woodsmen -- many people there are still woodsmen. Of course, cutting wood never made anyone rich, but for centuries it could provide a living to the families of Abbadia. 

Now, imagine yourself as a medieval woodsman: your life can only be very basic according to modern standards. You probably won't ever have, nor even see, a lot of money and your chances to buy things are very limited. Still, you are human and therefore a social animal. You want to show that your family is on a par with the others in terms of wealth. And you do that using this form of potlatch.

Note that a potlatch is possible only when the social structure of the place is not excessively unbalanced. High social differences would make the game strongly competitive with the doubly bad result that it would humiliate those at the bottom of the ladder and -- worse -- force everybody to destroy more than what they can afford to destroy. It is possible to have a wood-burning potlatch in Abbadia because the woods are managed mainly as a commons, in a rather egalitarian manner. Note also that there are strict rules limiting the size of the torches, that prevents people from overplaying their cards in the game. The idea is that every family should bring a log to the pile, but no more than that. It is, again, a way to avoid that the rich could humiliate the poor.

So, with Abbadia we have a good example of how natural resources can be reasonably well managed in the form of "commons." You remember that Garrett Hardin had spoken of the "tragedy of the commons" supposing that greed would always lead people to overexploit whatever is available to them. It doesn't happen in the real world, at least among peasants and woodsmen. Elinor Ostrom got a Nobel prize in economics for having studied exactly this subject and shown how local communities usually manage the commons well, as they do in Abbadia. 

Yes, but things are completely different if we move to larger scales, worldwide. There, we see Hardin's tragedy in full swing. We are burning fossil hydrocarbons at the fastest possible rate, we don't seem to be able to find another way to keep up with the joneses except in terms of consuming more than they do. It is as if we were thinking we can show we are richer by burning our home faster. And that happens not just at the level of families, it is at the level of entire nations. When President Trump speaks of "energy dominance" he means exactly that: the US is trying to show that it is more powerful than its neighbors by burning its oil resources faster than anyone else -- and destroying them in the process. It is potlatch in its purest form, gone out of control. We are burning everything.

Will we ever learn to manage our resources in a more rational way? Maybe it just takes time -- I am sure that it took time to arrive to manage the burning piles of Abbadia in a sustainable way. In the worldwide case, though, maybe we'll have to learn by going through one of those collapses that teach you things the hard way. Not pleasant, but maybe unavoidable.


And here are some more photos of the Abbadia Festival.

First, a photo that shows the process of the lighting of one of the torches, it is not easy and the photo gives an idea of the size of the pile.

Here us yours truly, Ugo Bardi, together with one of the "Capi-fiaccola" (torch-masters) charged with watching the tower while it burns and to make sure that nothing goes wrong and that nobody gets burned.

And, finally, me again together with a local denizen of the town, Manuela, a member of an ancient family of Abbadia. She told me that her father is a "capostipite," an honorific title in the cooperative that manages the woods around the town.

h/t the Calignano family

The story of the fisherman and of the farmer

Image courtesy of John MacDonald' "Farmers and Fishermen", 1994.

As I sit on the podium with the other speakers, I have in front of me about 30 boys and girls, around 10-12 years old; not even teenagers. They sit while the other speakers tell them of climate change and renewable energies. They are being told what we believe is good for them: that we are in danger, we need to act, we need to recycle our waste, save energy, and reduce emissions. But, at the same time, I can't avoid thinking that, out there, outside the cozy world of the school and of their teachers, there is a different reality. A world where a tree has a value only after it has been cut down and sold. A world where the measure of success is how much a person can consume. A world where the fragile thing we call "the environment" is always the least important concern. 

Are we doing to these children a favor by telling them what we are telling them? I cannot say, I can only see that they are good boys and good girls and that they are doing their best to listen to the speakers. They seem to understand that what they are being told is important for their future. And some of them seem to understand that it is not obvious that they will have a future. 

As my turn to speak approaches, I try to think. What can I tell to a group of tired (and also a little scared) children? An idea appears in my mind all of a sudden. I won't give the speech I had prepared; I'll create a new one. In ten minutes or so, I scratch a script on a few sheets of paper and when my turn comes I call for volunteers to play the script in front of the other children. They like the idea and they immediately understand how to play the respective roles, they are happy and excited to do something different than just listening. Here is the script I wrote, as I remember it.


THE FISHERMAN'S FAMILY.

Dad, dad.... We are hungry, we are hungry! We were waiting for you to come back, we were waiting for you to bring fish for us. Did you have a good catch, dad? Tell us!

Children, children, I am sorry, the catch was small. The net that I spread in the sea didn't catch so many fish. Children, I am sorry, but this is all that I can bring to you today.

Dad, is it so little? But we are hungry. We are hungry, dad, why can't you bring more fish for us from the sea?

Children, children, I threw my net in the sea many times, but there is not so much fish anymore in the sea because there are many fishermen and all of them have hungry children. And all of them try to catch as much fish as they can. And if we fish too much, there is not much fish left in the sea. But everyone does the same and if I don't do that, too, the fish that's left will be caught by the other fishermen. So, children, this is the catch that I bought today, and I know that it is not enough. But that is what I could do today and I cannot tell you that I will do better tomorrow. And that's the way of the fisherman.


THE FARMER'S FAMILY

Dad, dad.... Mom gave us some bread, but it was not so much and we are still hungry. And we saw that there is still grain stored in the house. Why can't we have that grain milled and use the flour to make some good bread for us, dad?

Children, children, I know that you are hungry and I know that there is still grain in the house. But, children, we cannot eat that grain. Your mom is giving you as much bread as she can, and I know that it is little. But you must go on with what mom can give you and ask no more.

But, dad, why can't we eat that grain that's kept stored in the house? Tell us, dad, because we don't understand this.

We can't eat that grain, children, because it the seed for the next harvest. Soon, we'll go sowing in the fields and we'll sow that grain as seed. And the seed that we sow will germinate and produce more grain, and that grain we will harvest and we will have bread for next year. And we'll keep some of the grain we harvest for the year that will follow and we'll keep doing that for the years that will come as our father and grandfathers did, and as you will do yourselves and for your children and their children. And that's the way of the farmer.


And there we are. The children who played as actors have recited their part, and they look happy and excited. Those who sat in the audience listened intently and they seemed to enjoy the performance. But did they understand what I was trying to tell them? I ask, "why can't the fisherman feed his family every day?" One of the children says, "because he fishes too much, and then there is no fish left in the sea." I ask her, "but why that doesn't happen to the farmer?" She answers: "because the farmer keeps some seed for the next harvest!" They never heard of the "tragedy of the commons" nor of the problem of fishery overexploitation, but they seem to have understood these concepts. 

So, I ask them, "but, today, are we behaving like farmers or like fishermen?" They are a little perplexed. I explain: "are we keeping some seed for the future or are we consuming everything we have?" They look at me, they understand what I said. One of them says: "like fishermen". And I tell him, "You are right, but let me explain: it doesn't matter if we are farmers or fishermen, but we must not take too much of what the land or the sea can provide so that the land or the sea have the time to re-create what we took away. Whether we are a farmers or fishermen, if we respect the land, or we respect the sea, our children will never go hungry. And if we all respect the earth, then everyone will be happy, and the earth, too!" They all nod; they seem to have understood the idea.

The workshop is over; the children move away, texting on their smartphones and chatting among themselves. Will they remember what I told them? And if they will, would that be useful to them?  I can't say. As I look at them leaving, there comes to my mind that they will be less than 50 years old in 2050, when the world will either have cut fossil fuel use by 80% or so or will face the dire consequences of not having done that. What kind of world will they see? (if they will be able to see it). I can only wish them good luck. 



h/t Marco Rustioni