The Guardian praises corks today.
But patience is now running out in Portugal, the world’s main cork
producer. Increasing competition from modern alternatives like plastic
tops, synthetic stoppers and, dare one mention it, screwcaps is hurting
the Portuguese economy as well as removing a little magic from wine
drinking as surely as a corkscrew does with a cork.
One thing that should be added (as Simon Barnes of The Times has been saying for years). The cork industry supports one of Europe’s prime ecosystems for bird life. The trees do not grow in thick forests, rather scatter themselves across the Alentejo (that part of Portugal between Lisbon and the Algarve). The basic farming method is to cut some small part of the bark each year, taking perhaps 20 years to completely strip it, by which time of course there is regrowth and the cycle starts again. So it is harvesting, not cutting down the tree.
The land in between the trees is usually grazed by sheep and goats and every 8 th year is ploughed and a wheat crop planted, before it returns to 7 years of pasture.
This whole cycle provides food and shelter to millions upon millions of migratory birds each year. If the cash income from the cork were to disappear the trees would come down and the fields become the monocrops similar to much of northern Europe.
So, remember, each time you drink from a bottle with a plastic or screw top you are damaging this environment.
Will no one think of the birds?
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