INTRODUCTION – World Biodiversity Day
Salento is rich in diverse beauty: monuments, history, culture, as well as unique flora and fauna.
Safeguarding the Salento landscape also means preserving the typical biodiversity of our peninsula, both animal and plant. In fact, each species is crucial to the ecosystem and the environment.
To protect biological diversity, the UN decided to establish World Biodiversity Day. Preserving biodiversity is everyone’s business: each of us holds the future of our Planet in our hands.
It was decided to celebrate Biodiversity on May 22 for a very specific reason: on this date, in 1992, the Convention on Biological Diversity was signed.
The goal of this day is to raise awareness and spread awareness of the problems that are putting, every day, a strain on biodiversity.
What is meant by Biodiversity?
“Biodiversity” means biological, animal and plant diversity coexisting in perfect balance.
Every living organism plays a vital role in the ecosystem: contributing to the stability of the environment, oxygen production, controlling the spread of bacteria, and fertilizing soils.
Protecting and restoring biodiversity is our duty. We must respect it by implementing sustainable actions on a daily basis that aim to:
- Promote the conservation of natural habitats;
- Reduce pollution;
- Mitigating climate change.
We must, in addition, make people aware of the importance of biodiversity and actively involve them in its preservation.
Respecting and valuing biodiversity allows us to build a more sustainable future.


The other plant species we plant in our olive groves.
Salento is rich in natural heritage that must be preserved. Xylella destroyed the vast expanses of olive trees that characterized our landscape, but we have not forgotten that the olive tree was, albeit the main one, only one of the plant species that we can find throughout the Salento region.
In fact, in addition to planting olive trees of the Leccino and Favolosa varieties, our association is also committed to ensuring plant biodiversity by planting other plants along the perimeter of the olive groves.
Here are the main plant species you can find in our olive groves:
- Holm oak
- Cool
- Myrtle
- Phillyrea
Typical plant species of Salento
The plant biodiversity of Salento is also known as the “Macchia Mediterranea”; there are numerous typical and spontaneous plant species living in our peninsula: evergreen trees, fruit trees, trees and shrubs.
Biodiversity is not only plant
Often when people talk about “Biodiversity” they refer to the different plant species that are born and live in an area, forgetting the small animals, microorganisms and insects that live and grow in the branches of trees and shrubs of arboreals and help keep plants healthy.
Their presence, in fact, implies the absence of any kind of pesticide or fertilizer-these are toxic substances that could put a strain on the lives of these animals.
Foxes, owls, snakes, and hedgehogs will never create their own burrows and raise their young in a place they believe may pose a danger.
Salento, particularly our olive groves, are a real reservoir of different animal species; as mentioned earlier, foxes, owls, hedgehogs, as well as lizards, snakes and geckos grow in an olive grove.