JD Murphy traveled to Portugal’s Côa Valley to escape the trauma of a firefighting career and ended up passing swathes of land devastated by wildfires. But national reserves like Faia Brava are leading rewilding efforts in the region and he saw first-hand how they’re reducing the risk of disaster—by changing the land, and our relationship with it.
*JD Murphy was one of four mentees who participated in Intrepid’s second Diversifying Travel Media press trip in October 2024 alongside three fellow mentees/aspiring travel journalists and four mentors/established travel writers and editors.*
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Outside the minibus, what used to be trees look like snapped masts of ships, sunk in black waves. Heads turn to look at me. They know my past. Four years investigating 72 deaths at London’s Grenfell Tower. Another year on the 2022 London wildfires. I came to Portugal to escape the firefighting trauma that ended my career.
But the fires had arrived before me.
Across five bright September days, 1,040 fires had burned an area larger than New York City in central Portugal. Over 5,000 firefighters fought flames through villages, countryside, and towns. Nine people died, four of them firefighters. Presumably, the ghosts of structures we are driving past in pouring rain were, until recently, homes.
My shoulders and fists relax (as much as they can with all the autoimmune illnesses that sprang up alongside my PTSD) as we pass through the burned area and into a forest of maritime and stone pine, occasional cork trees; we’re on our way to Castelo Rodrigo, the perfect place to retreat to during a crisis.
Castelo Rodrigo looks every bit the medieval bastion it is; a castle and cluster of low, stone and red-tile-roofed buildings that seem to grow directly out of the high peak they occupy in the Serra da Marofa, a clear day’s gaze from the Spanish border. This area is an enclave of bald hills and rolling pine woods between the Douro River that marks the border, and the Côa Valley, a dramatic river gorge that cuts a deep, meandering path through sun-parched hills of rocky heath and abandoned cropland. It’s a harsh landscape where generations have tried—and mostly failed—to subsist. Just about the only construction underway these days is done by the white cranes building nests in the clock tower above the dusty, half deserted town that curls around the feet of the Castelo. And even they’ve gone south for the winter.
When our minibus ends its reluctant climb of the hill, we’re glad of the narrowness of the cobbled streets—the horizontal rain and wind finds it harder to hit us there. We smile at our host, Ana Berliner, in lieu of responding to her words of greeting, which whip past us and out into the plains, unheard.
When I ask about the return of the lynx, the apex predator that used to stalk these lands, and recently spotted south of here after being thought extinct for decades, Antonio’s cheerful disposition wavers. “The lynx,” he tells us, “can only come if the whole system is fixed.”
As well as being the proprietor of Casa Cisterna, the guest house whose homely, eclectic collection of buildings peppering the southern side of Castelo Rodrigo I will call home for the next week, Ana Berliner is a biologist. She was part of the team that, 25 years ago, saw opportunity in this land when others saw hopelessness. Together with her husband, Antonio Mónteiro, and a few other biologists who understood the mission, they bought up small farms, patiently adding to their total, as each local family gave up on farming the tough landscape, abandoning the steep Côa Valley for the city.
Next morning, walking out onto the land with Antonio, I can see how farming here could be a challenge. Juniper, rockrose and heather crack open their scents in the sunshine, mingling with the petrichor from the torrential rain that stopped with sunrise, but the shrubs are clinging to thin soil scattered here and there on the plateau, while nearby craggy cliffs drop sharply away into the river valley. Rocky outcrops mirror the cliffs, rising vertically from the hills and plateau, getting in the way of any agriculture persistent enough to survive the drenched winters, the parched summers. No wonder there are few farming families left.
Farming’s loss has been nature’s gain, however, thanks to Ana, Antonio, and the other biologists. Turning the despair of the fleeing farmers into hope, combining the small parcels of land they bought one by one into a protected whole, they founded Faia Brava, Portugal’s first private nature reserve. That was 25 years ago. Now, Faia Brava is leading the country’s rewilding efforts, nurturing griffon vultures and Bonelli’s eagles, wild horses and native grasses, on over 2,000 acres of cliffs, river, and windswept rolling hills, and the biologists are still buying up land as and when it becomes available, as the last few farming families in the valley opt for the city’s ready resources over the uncertainty of life on this ancient landscape.
Antonio, a biologist like his wife, has an infectious love for the flora and fauna of the area. As the sun warms us and eagles circle lazily overhead, he tells us how the queen ants we observe (in mild terror at their size) will leave to found their own colonies. And as the sun rises and we reach the top of a rocky ravine, the sharp-sided Côa river opening out before us, he shows us how to spot vulture nests on the steep cliffs by their guano (excrement) trail below them.
But when I ask about the return of the lynx, the apex predator that used to stalk these lands, recently spotted south of here after being thought extinct for decades, Antonio’s cheerful disposition wavers. “The lynx,” he tells us, “can only come if the whole system is fixed.”
He explains how even the soil has changed through years of human misuse; how this means fewer grasses, less lichen. And in turn, fewer insects for the birds, and less greenery for the rabbits. No rabbits and birds—so no lynx to eat them.
Back at our castle retreat, I find comfort in fine Portuguese wines to soften the pain the day’s walk has wrought in my limbs, inflamed as they are by the illnesses that started when I was firefighting—and which, through stress, trauma and aging, have progressed since to become disabilities.
Alongside the wine, Ana serves us turnip green soup, leek and goat’s cheese gratin, and bacalhau á brás, a homely mass of shredded cod and herbs, bound with egg. The meal sets the tone for the coming week, which will feature only food made in Ana’s kitchen, prepared to traditional recipes with local ingredients. The next morning, I wake fearful of what the exertion and indulgence may have provoked from my various illnesses. To my surprise, I’m not worse.
Back out on Faia Brava for another walk, Antonio leads us up a steep hill—it’s like he’s tempting the gods to do their worst with my joints. “Horses scratch out depressions to sleep in,” he tells us as we walk, pointing to hollows in the dry earth. “They fill with rainwater. Watering holes are born.”
I think he then tells us that birds come to the water to drink… but we have all stopped listening. On top of the hill, looking down at us are 15 bronze-coated Garrano horses. Utterly wild. Utterly beautiful. Native to this region but critically endangered, with only around 2,00 left in existence, the Garrano is one of the oldest occupants of this land, and, when their numbers were sufficient, they played a crucial role in fire prevention by grazing large areas. Standing above us on the hill now, they scratch the earth with hooves that suddenly seem huge. Skittish colts kick and buck. Calm mares wander towards us, snorting the air as if they can scent our intentions.
I back away. These are huge animals, and I think, incongruously, how they are often used in war—my PTSD is saying hi. But they circle us, and we them—cameras in hands and hearts in mouths—until they decide we’re boring, and trot up another rise to disappear into what has become a beautifully blue Portuguese sky.
At Faia Brava, eating Ana’s homemade food and hearing Antonio’s passion for nature, I realize they’re fighting that on two fronts. Rewilding offers a chance of repair, and prevention of future flare-ups, in the land, but also in our bodies.
By day four, my PTSD, like the autoimmune illnesses I had feared would prevent me taking part in walks, have calmed. Why so, when I am challenging myself, mentally and physically? As I enjoy Ana’s homemade blood sausage with almonds, figs, and walnuts, I realize I haven’t eaten a single ultra-processed food (UPF) since our arrival.
I wonder, is that why I’m relatively pain-free? UPFs are the logical end-product of industrial farming, where treating the land as a thing to profit from has led to deforestation, monocultural wastescapes, mineral-deficient soil, and creatures that grow quickly, eat unnaturally, and die badly.
These commodifications of food and land have led to a huge increase in wildfires by removing diversity and soil moisture, and by raising temperatures by increasing CO2 and methane in the atmosphere, while simultaneously, our bodies burn with inflammation as auto-immunity rates rocket and obesity obliterates health budgets. Just as the UPF is a symbol and symptom of bad ways of producing, our ill health is a symbol and symptom of bad ways of living.
At Faia Brava, eating Ana’s homemade food and hearing Antonio’s passion for nature, I realize they’re fighting that on two fronts. Rewilding offers a chance of repair, and prevention of future flare-ups, in the land, but also in our bodies. Taking care of the land goes hand-in-hand with taking care of ourselves—by allowing us to spend more time outside, integrate movement into our daily life, socialize, and find natural foods to eat.
Initially, talk of a rewilded landscape conjures images of overgrowth, a chaos more likely to spread fire. In fact, evidence shows that rewilded habitats and terrains like Faia Brava’s have key fire prevention benefits. Healthy soils, for example, hold more water, which prevents ignition and delays spread.
Animals prevent fires too. Boars turn the land with their snouts, and rabbits, horses, and cattle graze, keeping growth controlled. They also spread seeds, creating diversity that combats the monocultural land use typical of large-scale agribusiness, like closely spaced conifers, or large fields of stubble from singular crops. Fire hazards.
Of course, it’s simplistic to suggest that we let just let the world rewild. People must be able to afford to eat. But the imperative to stop treating the land as a means to an end is increasingly apparent. The number of extreme wildfires has more than doubled in the last 20 years, and, since 1990, degraded air quality caused by wildfires worldwide is estimated to have caused 10 million premature deaths.
On our last night at Faia Brava, Ana leads us on a moonlit hike along the Côa river to where over 5,000 rock-carved figures of animals have been found. Created over millennia from around 22,000 BCE, they seem to be an unreadable message from our ancestors. An early indication of where resources could be harvested? Or perhaps an honoring of the aurochs (ancient ancestors of cattle), goats, horses, fish, that they lived in some form of symbiosis with? Whatever the creators’ intentions, they remind us we exist in a continuum, part of something bigger than our individual desires, profits, or losses. That we are responsible for what comes after us.
We must fix the land. But we can’t do that without fixing what’s damaging the land. Us. The lesson I learned at Faia Brava is that rewilding needs to happen both on the land, and in ourselves.
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This trip was based on elements of Intrepid’s Portugal Real Food Adventure which visits parts of rural, northern Portugal, including the Côa Valley.
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JD Murphy is a travel, health, and culture journalist based in London. He was recipient of a Talking Travel Writing mentorship and took part in Intrepid Travel’s Diversifying Travel Media trip to Portugal. He served as a senior fire officer for two decades before disability forced retirement.
