JOE HOLLES OPENS THE SONMO DIALOGUES WITH A VISION FOR A LIVING TRAMUNTANA

The first edition of the SONMO Dialogues opened with a talk by Joe Holles, co-founder of the project, who offered an informative, personal and engaging journey through the vision behind SONMO: from the deep history of the Son Moragues estate to the last fifteen years of regeneration work that have marked the beginning of a new era.

Joe spoke about the origins of the project and its central ambition: to help return this corner of the Serra de Tramuntana to its productive self. At the heart of his talk was a clear conviction: that a cultural landscape can only be preserved if it is kept alive. Terraces, olive groves, forests, paths and dry-stone walls cannot survive through protection alone. They need a vibrant economy, active land management, community, culture, craft, agriculture and beauty.

Through the story of Son Moragues, Joe described SONMO as a living demonstration that it is still possible for a Mallorcan mountain finca to produce food, materials, objects and meaning in the 21st century. He reflected on the early years of the project, when the team carried out a deep dive into the history of the estate and the wider region, learning from the past in order to build a different future.

 He also shared the scale of work already carried out on the estate: hundreds of hectares of forest, olive groves, orchards, dry-stone terraces, paths and historic structures restored and brought back into active care. This long process has involved clearing abandoned land, recovering productive trees, reopening paths, repairing traditional stone infrastructure, improving forest management and reactivating agricultural systems that had been neglected for decades.

The talk highlighted the enormous amount of coordination required to make this possible. Regeneration is not the work of one person or one finca alone; it depends on weaving together many actors: agricultural cooperatives, public administrations, civil society, farmers, walkers, businesses and local communities.

 Joe presented SONMO as “ground zero” for a wider regeneration of the Tramuntana: a place where nature and economy, tradition and innovation, people and place can be reconnected. From high-value products rooted in the land to support for initiatives such as Muntanya del Voltor, Tramuntana XXI, FIM and the wider Regenera movement, SONMO is helping build a future of resilience, environmental abundance, beauty and welbeing.

 His message was both practical and hopeful: if the land is valued, worked and loved, the Tramuntana can become not a relic of the past, but a living landscape for the future.