Assumpta Duran lived for rent in the farmhouse Les Lloberes de Dalt in Les Llosses, in Ripollès (Girona) for 35 years until the owners did not renew the contract because they wanted to sell the property. "I broke a life project," he laments.
The buyer is the company Naturalis Science Food, the company that since 2020 has acquired 1,800 hectares of land between Berguedà and Ripollès with about 14 farmhouses inside, most of them demolished.
Naturalis Science Food is a company based in Catalonia dedicated, among others, to the production of animal food and also to real estate investment.
Since 2020, the company has acquired a total of 1,800 hectares that belonged to four different owners and are located between the municipalities of Les Llosses (Ripollès), Sant Jaume de Frontanyà, Borredà and Castell de l'Areny (Berguedà). This is an area that has a total of three hunting grounds - two owned by Naturalis and one by the Sant Jaume de Frontanyà Hunting Society.
This situation has made some neighbors distrust the reasons for purchasing the land and have created a platform called 'No to the elitist preserve'. They believe that Naturalis' intention is to make a large exclusive preserve for hunting, mostly deer.
The town councils and the Department of Climate Action have not received any requests to carry out any project. Pere López, a member of the platform, denounces that the company has kicked out neighbors who had been residing in the farmhouses for many years and also some ranchers who grazed in the area.
The platform denounces that the purchase of so many properties by the same company can aggravate depopulation. "More than 50% of the farmhouses in Les Llosses are uninhabited or in ruins and these people who are hoarding the land make life impossible for the people who already lived here, for those who want to live and for those who would like to come with agricultural and livestock projects" , explains López.
For his part, the mayor of Les Llosses, Jaume Cuní, although he assures that the company has not contacted the City Council and has no information about the activity they want to develop, is also distrustful and concerned that buyers "prioritize certain areas such as hunting areas and not to promote agricultural and livestock activity".
Assumpta Duran remembers with great sadness that moment when she had to leave the land: "My life project was interrupted. I had hoped that I could live longer and that my grandchildren could enjoy the place where their father lived." But sadness turned into "perplexity" when he realized that the son of the mayor of Sant Jaume de Frontanyà, Nil Anselmo, came to live with a herd of cows. "We felt cheated and that we had been fooled," he says.
Duran does not know what is behind it, but he doubts: "No one buys for nothing, when someone buys land or properties there is an intention. I don't know what it is, now we don't know, but in the long run we will know." In any case, he regrets that the company is acquiring so many farms and kicking out the people who live there: "They are deserting the land."
Naturalis Science Food is a company based in Catalonia made up of two investors: the Catalan Marc Riera and the German Rainer Voortman.
The company, apart from the production of animal feed, is also dedicated to real estate investment. Since 2020, the company has acquired a total of 1,800 hectares in Ripollès and Berguedà from four different owners. Company sources explain that inside the properties there were several buildings but that only two are habitable and that the rest are in rubble.
They assure that they invested in buying natural spaces in Catalonia with the objective "of carrying out adequate management of the forest, creating pastures, promoting local livestock farming and creating a forestry and livestock management plan that is positive for the development of the territory."
They deny that they want to create any exclusive hunting reserves for economic reasons and, in fact, they remember that all forest lands in Catalonia are considered hunting reserves and "are regulated by current regulations in which animals have free movement." They explain that the law does not allow the creation of fences or barriers and "this makes the creation of any type of exclusive preserve unfeasible."
Unlike the Llosses, the Sant Jaume de Frontanyà City Council is calm and believes that the company does not want to carry out any activity related to elitist hunting.
The hunting activity has been going on for many years and new species cannot be introduced, everything is very controlled by Medi Ambient," explains the mayor, the socialist Manel Anselmo. He assures that "no matter how much money you have, you cannot skip the laws just like that." In addition, he also points out that the company has not requested any permission from the council. Anselmo defends the company and says that he has not fired anyone and makes it clear that he does not receive any benefits: "I don't care. "No one pays, I am paid by the City Council and no one from the town works for them."
The only two habitable farmhouses of the 14 that are located within the properties acquired by Naturalis are rented by relatives of the mayor.
His in-laws live in one and his son, Nil Anselmo, in the other, who came to live in the Lloberes de Dalt farmhouse after the company did not renew the contract with Assumpta Duran. Anselmo also has a herd of cows and says that thanks to Naturalis he has been able to maintain his activity. "Thanks to these people who have bought the farms, I have been able to stay in the town and continue with the livestock activity," he explains, ensuring that "livestock farming is totally compatible with hunting."
Precisely, Nil Anselmo is the one who received some bullets from the neighbor who had occupied the house next door after she had been kicked out of the farmhouse where she had lived for years. The author of the features is in preventive detention.
