I like working at projects. It gives a frame, a goal to what I do. Each project is a study of a specific environment. I walk the area all through the year, documenting its formation, the way it evolves and the variety of landforms that results from that evolution. I also try to show its fragility and why it is necessary to protect it better. My aim is to give as much information as possible about the zone, keeping in mind my work needs to be both pedagogical and esthetical.
I have been walking the Bardenas Reales de Navarra for two years now. This incredible territory is located some 80km SE of the city of Pamplona, in the heart of the Ebro River depression. What you can admire here is what remains of a huge alluvial deposit after milions of years of erosion: tall cliffs, bad-lands, scrubsaline steppes, mesa shaped highs, deep ravines. To some extent, the place has the looks of southern Utah. Yet, because its soil is mainly composed of marl, the zone is extremely erosive and fragile. Thunderstorms shape the landscape and the changes can be seen on a human scale: a canyon visited in July may have disappeared by September. The hostile climate, though, did not deter people from using this semi-arid zone for agricultural and grazing purposes. Archeological sites dating back to the iron age have been found. The Junta de las Bardenas, in Tudela, administrates the territory, and a lot of good work is being done. Yet, if the days when caravans of 4x4 paced up the place in every direction are now over, we must keep in mind the Bardenas remains a very fragile and sensitive zone that deserves all our care and protection.
On rare occasions, Nature benefits from the development of human activities. That is the case with the beech forest of Irati, in the heart of the french Basque Country. Overexploited from the middle of the 19th century to the 1950's, Irati is now back on form. Strangely, this is in part due to the construction of roads and tracks giving a better access to the forest. Easy access ended a period of clearcuts. In the 1960's, it was finally possible to administrate the forest in a more responsible, sensible way. Here in the Basque Country you will find some of Europe's largest deciduous forests, of which beech is the main species. Beech is beautiful. It lives up to 250 years old and can reach 40 meters in height. This owesome tree dominates the landscape North and south of the french-spanish border. The forests it forms are marvellous places that will leave nobody indifferent. .
In icelandic, "fjallabak" means "the track behind the mountains". So what is there along the track? Well, quite a few things: volcanoes, fumeroles, glaciers, rhyolitic mountains, canyons, lava fields, hot springs, glacial rivers, black sand dunes, obsidian fields, fields of mosses and lichens, and the lists goes on and on. That is the most incredible place I have ever been to. There is a problem, though: you do not know where to start. You do not even know where the whole place starts, let alone where it goes to or how it is organized. In Iceland, Nature is playing with a gigantic puzzle of which new pieces appear everyday. It is this apparent chaos that is fascinating. It urges you to come back and try to understand, once more, what is going on out there.
