Upon reaching retirement age, Francesc Tor, 80 years old, and Antònia Laura Porta, 71, settled in the place where they were born, Cava (Alt Urgell), one of the municipalities in Catalonia with the highest risk of become depopulated Of the less than 50 currently registered, only 26 or 27 live regularly in one of its three cores, Ansovell, El Querforadat and Cava, according to the mayor, Gisela Sellés. More than half are retired and those who work do so outside, in La Seu d'Urgell, Andorra, France... The scenario facing Cava could be extrapolated to other small towns in Garrigues, La Noguera, Solsonès, the two Pallars, Alta Ribagorça, Alt Urgell, Urgell, Conca de Barberà, Priorat, Terra Alta or Ribera d'Ebre, where urgent actions are needed to mitigate the loss of inhabitants.
Cava does not have a grocery store or bar and the schools closed decades ago, although several rural tourism houses and second homes operate in an environment that offers fascinating views of the Cadí. Entering Cava seems to set foot in paradise, although some people who tried a new life here during the pandemic returned to the city when normality returned. But in summer, the neighbors multiply by three or four, at least.
The Association of Small Towns of Catalonia; Eines de Repoblament Rural (ERR), the lobby created in 2021 and which brings together more than 500 municipalities of a maximum of 2,000 registered residents, and different studies warn of the uncertain future faced by small towns. The geographers Ignasi Aldomà and Josep Ramon Mòdol, from the University of Lleida, already warned in 2021, in their report on new indicators of generational relief in the rural world, that 200 municipalities are "in a critical situation of depopulation". Cava is one of them.
“The abandonment is not accidental, in Catalonia no policies have been made to stop the loss of inhabitants, in other communities they started before. We want rurality to be at the center of the debate and that a law be approved to achieve positive discrimination, now we have the same bureaucratic obligations as the Barcelona city council”, argues Jaume Gilabert, coordinator of ERR and mayor of Montgai.
ERR and Micropobles hope to have in their hands the draft of the Statute of Rural Municipalities, commissioned by the Generalitat, to see to what extent their demands are met. Mario Urrea, president of Micropobles and mayor of Torrebesses, points out that unavoidable issues are "the issue of financing and administrative simplification, we want more flexibility and common sense, they cannot demand the same from us as from large cities."
In Cava, for example, they do not have any municipal employee and they share a secretary and administration with two other municipalities. “We have no resources. When it snows all the neighbors clean the road. Only one day a month a boy comes to do maintenance tasks”, comments the mayoress, who settled in this enclave of Alt Urgell, in 2016. The council is now immersed in the procedures to modify the municipal urban planning plan ( POUM) so that, if a project is presented, bars or restaurants can be opened in its municipal area. "Now the POUM does not allow it," says the mayor.
ERR and Micropobles – an association that brings together 240 municipalities with less than 1,000 inhabitants – hope that the future statute will determine formulas to adapt the Urbanisme law to the reality of the local world, creating specific management models for nuclei in recession. Taking into account that a common problem is the housing deficit, which expels young people who want to emancipate themselves and blocks the arrival of potential new neighbors, ERR proposed the alternative of adapting houses in existing buildings on rural land and increasing the tax burden on the owners of closed buildings, second homes and tourist apartments, among other measures.
“For us second homes are more of a problem than a benefit; Yes, some properties have been fixed but they have caused an increase in prices and have made it difficult for locals to access a home. In addition, 15% of the houses in the town are closed, there are people who prefer that they fall before renting them. We have three or four families who want to come and live here but can't find a home”, notes the mayor of Montgai. “The drama is that long-term policies are not designed. If action is not taken in a clear and forceful way, the forgotten Catalonia will become the closed Catalonia, some municipalities find it very difficult to survive”, he adds.
Mario Urrea is especially concerned about the economic model to which some micro-towns are forced. “In Segrià, diversified agriculture has been replaced by intensive monoculture. The lifelong farmer rents his land to someone who comes from outside and his children are forced to leave to earn a living. The same happens with windmills and photovoltaic panels. Why don't they mount them in the Free Zone? It is more costly for the farmer to rent his land than to cultivate, this is taking advantage of misery and fueling depopulation,” reflects Urrea. One of the challenges, in his opinion, is to attract small entrepreneurs, attract them with tax benefits. They are proposals that the mayors claim to be taken into account in the draft law for the statute of rural municipalities, the draft of which is being reviewed by different departments of the Generalitat, as confirmed by the Presidency.
Gisela Sellés believes that the challenge for Cava is no longer to gain many more inhabitants but to retain the ones it has. The mayoress comments that the drought and the limited services available only allow us to think of moderate increases.
Francesc and Antònia enjoy a peaceful life in Ansovell and go on trips to Andorra, where they have spent half their lives and where their son and daughter reside. Francesc worked for 35 years in Forces Elèctriques d'Andorra and Antònia in the restaurant sector. “Now, we take care of the chickens and an orchard, but we have had to put up a fence to prevent wild boars and roe deer from entering and destroying everything. I also go out to the forest to collect firewood”, says Francesc, annoyed by the little help that reaches the town. He regrets that one of the streets continues without a finished sewage system or access to drinking water.
He says that six decades ago, all the families had fields of wheat, dairy cows, as well as pigs and chickens, and that the calves were sold at reasonable prices. Now there is no farmer left, there is only a small herd belonging to a producer from another town and the four cows cared for by Antoni Pubill, 80, the only resident of a farmhouse, in the center of Cava, where four families used to live. . Now only his house remains standing, a privileged viewpoint of the Cadí. “I only left Cal Pubill for the two years that I was an intern at a school in La Seu and when I went to the military. I consider that Cava is already depopulated because if people from outside had not settled there would only be me. Some people came very excited at first but they end up leaving”, sums up Antoni, the last witness to a lifestyle on the verge of extinction.
