Reading the Land: Policy, Culture, and the Future of Portugal’s Montado

What does it mean to read a landscape? 

For farmers it means knowing which grasses emerge after autumn rains, which soils hold moisture longest, and which oaks can be trusted to yield acorns through a dry summer. For policymakers it means recognizing that rules and subsidies never operate in a vacuum but shape the very ecosystems they intend to support. For communities it means understanding that culture and cuisine are not separate from ecology but living expressions of it.

In Portugal’s Alentejo region, the Montado ecosystem offers one of Europe’s most striking examples of how people and land have evolved together. It is a landscape of oaks and pasture, of pigs and sheep, of wild herbs and mushrooms, of families and traditions. It is also a system under pressure. Rising land prices, globalization, and especially European agricultural policies have made this balance increasingly fragile.

The Montado shows us something essential. Regeneration is not just a technical challenge. It is not achieved by prescriptions written on paper. It is carried forward by people who live within their context, who make decisions based on values, and who understand the land as their common home.

The Montado as a living mosaic

The Montado is not simply forest, nor grassland, nor cropland. It is a mosaic of life and culture. Scattered cork oaks and holm oaks stand across rolling hills. Beneath them stretch annual pastures, cereals in rotation, and fallows. Sheep and cattle graze, Alentejano pigs feed on acorns, bees hum among wildflowers, mushrooms rise after autumn rains, and hunters follow hare, partridge, and boar.

This diversity is not accidental. It is the result of centuries of agro sylvo pastoral practice, where people deliberately integrated trees, livestock, and crops into a system resilient enough to survive Mediterranean droughts and shallow soils. The Montado has always been multifunctional. Cork harvested every nine years. Firewood and charcoal. Honey and herbs. Mushrooms with deep ecological and cultural value. And most famously, the Porco Alentejano, the acorn fed pig that shaped a distinctive gastronomic identity.

The Montado is also one of Europe’s most biologically rich landscapes, hosting up to 100 plant species per tenth of a hectare. Its scattered oaks and wildflower meadows create habitats for countless birds, insects, and mammals. It is as much a cultural heritage as an ecological one, a landscape where human presence has long been woven into natural rhythms.

Reading the land through history

To read the Montado is to read history. Romans introduced olives and vines. Moors brought irrigation and new crops. Portuguese explorers carried seeds from Africa and the Americas. Over centuries, families pruned oaks, planned grazing cycles, and built villages, chapels, and mills.

This long continuity shows something important. Landscapes are not static. They are co creations of people and nature. The Montado is proof that humans are not separate from ecosystems but part of their functioning.

But in the last decades, this delicate balance has been shaken. The dictatorship that ended in 1974 left deep scars on rural life. Portugal’s entry into the European Union in 1986 brought the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP), which imposed rules written far from the land. Rural populations left for cities, labor costs rose, and mechanization replaced human scale stewardship. The ancient equilibrium between people and land began to fray.

Policy without context

Policy is often created in three steps. A problem is identified. Experts are consulted. Rules are written and enforced. On paper it looks neat. On the land it rarely works.

The CAP is a clear example. Intended to stabilize farming income, it tied subsidies to livestock numbers. The higher the cattle count, the greater the payment. Mechanized ploughing, subsidized as modernization, destroyed fragile root systems. Afforestation subsidies encouraged eucalyptus and pine, trees that drink deep from already scarce water and crowd out biodiversity.

The Montado was treated not as a whole system but as a set of parts to be managed separately. Trees here, crops there, animals somewhere else. The result was unintended consequences. Bare soil. Declining cork stands. Rising erosion. The very policies meant to secure food and livelihoods undermined both.

This is not unusual. Institutions tend to drift from their purpose. Once created, they start defending themselves instead of the land and the people they were meant to serve. 

Holistic Management as a guide for policy

Holistic Management offers a different starting point. It reminds us that all management is always of three things at once: ecosysthem, people, and economy within the framework of institutions. No decision can ignore one of these without consequence.

The framework has three pillars.

A shared holistic context. This is not a slogan but a collective vision of the quality of life we want, the forms of production that will sustain it, and the future resource base it depends on. In Portugal, this might mean families thriving on the land, soils covered and fertile, water cycles restored, and local gastronomy celebrated.

Decision testing. Every policy must be checked against the four ecosystem processes. Are plants capturing more sunlight? Is rainfall infiltrating instead of running off? Are nutrients cycling back into the soil instead of leaking away? Is biodiversity strengthening or collapsing?

Feedback loops. Just as grazing plans adjust to rainfall and recovery, policies must adapt to outcomes. Instead of enforcing rules, governments can monitor ecological indicators and adjust incentives when needed.

In this way, policy becomes a management guidline in its true sense. It is the practice of tending the relationships of our common home.

Gastronomy as a cultural compass

The Montado is not only about ecology and economics. It is also about culture expressed through food. From acorn fed pork to honey, mushrooms, herbs, and wines, the Montado’s diversity has always been mirrored in its cuisine.

When policy overlooks this, culture weakens. Industrial pork and imported feed have undermined the Porco Alentejano. Cheap timber markets have favored eucalyptus plantations. Globalized diets have eroded local food identity.

Holistic Management suggests that just as policies must be tested against ecosystem processes, gastronomy must be tested against cultural resilience. Do our food choices deepen connection to place, or weaken it? Do they reward diversity, or flatten it?

By anchoring gastronomy in the Montado’s rhythms — acorn cycles, seasonal mushrooms, wild herbs — Portugal can build a sustainable gastronomic identity that supports farmers, enriches culture, and sustains ecosystems.

Opportunities for growth and return in ten years

The Montado and other agro pastoral systems show that investing in regeneration is not only ecological but financial. Over the next decade, policy aligned with Holistic Management could unlock growth and stability for farmers and investors alike.

1. Grass as the main crop. Regenerative grazing can double or triple forage production, reducing dependence on purchased feed.
2. Water as natural capital. Healthy soils hold more rainfall, lowering irrigation costs and buffering droughts.
3. Carbon markets. Regenerated soils store carbon, opening new income streams as carbon credits become mainstream.
4. Diversified revenue. Cork, acorns, beef, sheep, goats, honey, mushrooms, herbs, and tourism spread risk and provide steady returns.
5. Gastronomic value. Products like Porco Alentejano or local wines command premium prices, linking ecology to culture.
6. Community herding. Shared livestock management, lowers costs and restores ecosystems quicker.
7. Outcome based subsidies. Public investment tied to a context. 
8. Lower input costs. Reduced dependence on fertilizers and external feed cuts expenses significantly.
9. Cultural tourism. Restoring Montado heritage and gastronomy attracts sustainable tourism, adding income resilience.
10. Legacy and meaning. The deepest return on investment is a resilient community that passes on both land and values to the next generation.

Choosing meaning over comfort

As farmers and policymakers, we are often asked to choose between comfort and meaning. Comfort says apply more fertilizer, take the subsidy, survive another year. Meaning says manage for the whole, restore soil, keep water in the ground, pass on dignity and abundance.

The Montado shows me that a meaningful life is stronger than a comfortable one. Comfort can vanish overnight with a drought, a market crash, or a policy shift. Meaning builds resilience that lasts across generations.

Conclusion: Our Common Home

To read the land is to see that there is no such thing as an invasive plant, only plants responding to the circumstances they find. People too move when conditions change, whether through war, drought, or economic pressure. No one invades. Each seeks a place where life can thrive.

When we manage our farms as if they stand alone, or run our companies without including others and seeing them as part of a whole, we create fragmentation and conflict. When we design policy without context, we deepen that same division. In truth, nature does not work through competition but through cooperation and symbiosis. The Montado reminds us of this every day, showing a living partnership between people, trees, animals, soil, and culture. It is not separate elements but one whole system.

When we design policy from shared values, tested against the four ecosystem processes, we create the conditions for both land and people to flourish.

Management becomes the daily practice of tending the relationships that keep our common home alive.

The Montado of Portugal is more than a regional landscape. It is a living example of how people and nature can coevolve to create biodiversity, culture, and resilient economies.