Forestry work is underway in Deià
This spring, the signs of regeneration have become impossible to miss. Across different parts of the municipality, forestry teams have been working on the ground, opening strategic firebreaks, reactivating ancient olive groves, and helping restore an ancestral landscape back to its productive self.
Regenera Deià was born from the vision to regenerate this land. After 6 months of planning, fundraising and establishing alliances and partnerships hands on work is reshaping the land.
Between March and June, forest work has accelerated across the municipality, with three different local companies working in strategic areas to reduce fire risk, recover abandoned agroforestry landscapes, and open the next chapter of regeneration in the Serra de Tramuntana.
A spring of action on the firebreak front
In Cala Deià and the Can Comelles area, Mateu Valls and Net Pellet have been working on what is becoming the municipality’s central firebreak. This area is especially significant for Regenera Deià, as a land stewardship agreement has recently been signed with the Can Comelles estate, through which Regenera Deià and Abocaverds will take on the long-term management of the land.
Net Pellet, the island’s leading company in the use of forest biomass for energy, has been carrying out the forestry work needed to open and strengthen this strategic protection zone. Beyond reducing wildfire risk, the project aims to recover agricultural production and establish the area as the central node of a guerrilla grazing initiative: ground zero for a new model of landscape management that combines fire prevention, regenerative agriculture, livestock grazing, and community stewardship.
At the same time, Josep Vicens, from Sóller, has led a major intervention in the Ses Planes area. Josep leads one of the strongest young forestry and agricultural teams in the Serra, combining technical knowledge, local experience, and practical capacity on the ground. This intervention was made possible through a combination of private investment from the estate owners, public funding, and support from Regenera Deià through its one-stop land management service.
In Es Recó, the Montepino team have been clearing and improving access in one of the densest inhabited forest areas in the municipality. This is exactly the kind of work that matters before an emergency: improving access and exits, reducing accumulated biomass, and making the landscape safer for residents, emergency services, and the forest itself.
Montepino has also been working in Can Gall, in the Alconàsser area, another inspiring private initiative supported by FIM and Regenera Deià. Together, these projects show what becomes possible when landowners, local companies, public funding, and civic coordination begin to move in the same direction.
Nearly five hectares of forest recovered
Together, these interventions mean that almost five hectares of abandoned forest and olive groves have now been cleared or actively managed.
This is not simply about “cleaning” the forest. It is about restoring structure to landscapes that had become dense, unmanaged, and vulnerable after decades of agricultural abandonment. Across the town, ancient olive groves are beginning to reappear beneath the pines. Dry-stone terraces are becoming visible again. Strategic firebreaks are taking shape in places where access, vegetation density, and accumulated biomass had created real risk.
The goal is not to erase the forest, but to restore a healthy agroforestry mosaic of farms and forests: a landscape that is less overloaded, more biodiverse, more resilient, and better integrated with traditional agricultural and grazing systems.
From fire risk to local value
One of the central ideas of Regenera Deià is that regeneration must be holistic. In a cultural landscape, like the Serra de Tramuntana, there can be no environmental sustainability without economic and social sustainability. This is why restoring the value of the products of the land is essential: traditional land-use patterns need to be brought up to date and relaunched for the 21st century.
Land management must become economically viable again, and wildfire prevention should not be seen only as a cost. If organised well, forest management can also reactivate local value chains.
The wood removed from these firebreaks is being processed into pellets, wood chips, and timber for carpentry. In this way, material that might otherwise have remained as fuel for future wildfires is being transformed into energy, craft, and local economic value.
And there is more to come. The first limited edition of firebreak furniture is already in the making: pieces created from wood removed during these interventions, turning prevention work into something visible, useful, and beautiful.
More news on that soon. Expect to see it this summer.
The next step: animals back in the landscape
Clearing is only the first phase. The real challenge is maintenance.
That is why the next step is to bring animals back into the system. Mallorcan sheep and donkeys can help keep these areas open, healthy, and productive over time, reducing the need for repeated mechanical interventions while restoring a form of landscape management deeply rooted in the history of the Serra.
Regenera Deià is currently fundraising to launch its guerrilla grazing project, a practical and low-cost way to bring back livestock as humans’ best ally in wildfire prevention and ecological restoration.
And Regenera’s first flock of beautiful native Mallorcan red sheep will be arriving in Deià very soon.
A landscape beginning to move again
This spring has shown that regeneration is not an abstract idea. It is something that happens with people, tools, animals, funding, permits, landowners, and persistence (lot’s of persistence!).
It happens when an old olive grove comes back into view.
When a firebreak becomes a corridor of safety.
When wood becomes furniture.
When sheep return to places that had gone silent.
And when a community decides that the landscape is not just something to admire, but something to care for, together.
