About

Portugal has witnessed a significant rural exodus towards the coast and emigration over the last 50 years, resulting in an ageing inland population and the abandonment of historic structures and agrarian practices.

However, this process of inland desertification (low-density territory), which, due to Portugal's geographical characteristics, also corresponds most times to mountain range territories, has had the effect of preserving the natural environment and biodiversity, and of preserving a set of buildings and structures that in a context of demographic pressure would have been demolished or deeply transformed.

The cultural value of these settlements and of the humanised landscape in which they are located is undeniable. However, the society that created them, that maintained them, and that needed them is almost non-existent, and today we face the problem of how to preserve values, significance and memory, in a sustained manner, and bring added value to society.

Taking as a pilot study case the territory integrated within the perimeter of UNESCO Gerês-Xurês Transboundary Biosphere Reserve (G-XBR) buffer zone, REVIVE aims to develop and test methodologies for documentation, analysis, plan and intervention, based on research, knowledge, and technology, but also on the contribution and involvement of the populations, which could allow a sustainable valorisation of the mountain range cultural heritage and its humanised landscape.

REVIVE is focused on dry stone masonry structures (wolf traps, apiary walls, corbelled dome structures, granaries, terraced walls, and property division). The inclusion, in 2018, of the knowledge and technique of the art of dry-stone construction on the UNESCO Intangible Heritage List, which left out Portugal, is double and opposite evidence: i) of the universal value of what is intended to be preserved and valued; ii) of the need to expand national and international recognition of Portuguese dry-stone traditions and increase knowledge.