Mirren takes on new role saving Italy’s ailing olive trees
HER PORTRAYAL of Elizabeth II was acclaimed as thoughtful and sympathetic; now Dame Helen Mirren has turned her attention to another venerable queen – an ancient olive tree in southern Italy.
The British actress has thrown her weight behind a campaign to halt a deadly bacteria that is affecting thousands of olive trees in the region of Puglia, where she has a home.
At the weekend she laid her hand on one of the region’s most ancient trees, nicknamed by locals La Regina or The Queen, which is believed to be up to 2,000 years old. More than 45ft (13m) in circumference at the base of its trunk, it is a symbol of the great age of many of the olive trees that are now under threat in Puglia’s Salento peninsula, in the heel of Italy’s boot.
“We need to help the Salento peninsula to save its ancient olive trees. They have an extraordinary value for agriculture and for the landscape. Some of them are more than 2,000 years old, and now they are dying,” the actress told Ansa, Italy’s national news agency.
“It is incredible that these olive trees could have been seen by Virgil and the Emperor Augustus… it is important that the whole of Europe sees it as I have.”
She called on the government to help farmers who have seen trees that have been sculpted and twisted by age and the elements wither and die. The gnarled olive, which grows outside the tiny village of Vernole di Strudà near the town of Lecce, was in danger of being axed – a fate that has befallen thousands of other trees – but experts believe they have saved it by grafting on branches from a variety of olive tree that is much more resistant to the pathogen Xylella fastidiosa.
Giuseppe Brillante, a regional official with Coldiretti, Italy’s principal farmers’ association, said: “For now, this is the only way we know of saving the tree and promoting the regrowth of the leaves – there is no cure for Xylella.”
Olive farmers and the mayors of towns in the affected region are delighted that the actress, who won an Oscar for her performance in The Queen, has taken an interest and hope she might persuade Hollywood friends such as Brad Pitt and Richard Gere to get involved in the campaign to halt the bacteria and save the region’s trees.
There are four other 2,000-year-old trees in the countryside around the hamlet visited by Dame Helen. Each has a different name, including The King, The Lion and The Pharaoh. She confessed that when the blight was first reported, she underestimated the threat.
“I thought they’d be able to do something about it. Instead we’ve got to this situation, which is very sad,” she said.
Dame Helen owns a 16th century Puglian farmhouse near the village of Tiggiano. She has 80 olive trees, mostly unaffected by the disease.
Puglia boasts around 60 million olive trees, 2million of which are infected. The disease was first detected in 2013 and has been heading northwards.