Demothanasia

© Adra Pallón - Image from the Demothanasia photography project © Adra Pallón - House abandoned after the death of the elderly person who lived there. Inside, everything was left as she left it. © Adra Pallón - Domingo picks potatoes to make food. Domingo is 88 years old and lives alone in an isolated village in A Fonsagrada. View all images ↓
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Death by depopulation is slow and silent. It is merciless with the territory, nature and heritage. The situation is no less dramatic for the people who live or, rather, resist in rural areas.

Demothanasia is the process by which political actions or omissions lead to the disappearance of a territory's population. Death by depopulation is slow and silent. It is merciless with the territory, nature and heritage. The situation is no less dramatic for the people who live or, rather, resist in rural areas. Those who live in the most absolute solitude in a silent, silenced and misnamed empties lands. In reality, it is not yet empties.

Europe is the most ageing continent in the world. In rural areas there is a high percentage of elderly people with a lack of residential autonomy or with a certain degree of dependency who are reluctant to leave the land where they have lived all their lives. They live alone where care and assistance are conspicuous by their absence. Extremely worrying social contexts in the face of insufficient resources on the part of the administration and the passivity, full of implicit violence, of the political actors involved. A large part of the ageing population is abandoned in these areas with a lack of care and very limited social and health care coverage.

These are traditionally smallholding territories due to the sinuous orography that makes intensive production impossible. The current voracious market of macro-production and over-production, the lack of quality telecommunications and connections means that the demographic pyramid in most of the territories is inverted. There are population centres where the pyramid does not even have a base due to the low birth rate and the massive rural exodus.

The depopulation of rural areas is one of the causes of numerous environmental problems such as the increase in the voracity of forest fires. Soil is no longer used for grazing or cultivation and is occupied by intensive plantations of highly pyrophytic alien species.

If there are no changes in this respect: the death of the last rural inhabitants will bring with it the death of a social model and then they will be an empties territories.



© Adra Pallón - Image from the Demothanasia photography project
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Olga is 91 years old and despite her age she walks several kilometres around her village every day. Her son, who used to live in the city, has had to return to the village where only they are left to look after her.

© Adra Pallón - House abandoned after the death of the elderly person who lived there. Inside, everything was left as she left it.
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House abandoned after the death of the elderly person who lived there. Inside, everything was left as she left it.

© Adra Pallón - Domingo picks potatoes to make food. Domingo is 88 years old and lives alone in an isolated village in A Fonsagrada.
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Domingo picks potatoes to make food. Domingo is 88 years old and lives alone in an isolated village in A Fonsagrada.

© Adra Pallón - Image from the Demothanasia photography project
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In Cantorcia there is only one inhabited house left. The rest have been abandoned years ago. This is one of them and little by little the undergrowth is swallowing it up.

© Adra Pallón - Image from the Demothanasia photography project
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Domingo is 86 years old and lives alone in Noceda, a small village in Lugo. Despite the heavy rain he goes to check on the livestock he left outside the house this morning.

© Adra Pallón - Fernando lives in the only company of his more than thirty dogs. They all live with him inside the house.
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Fernando lives in the only company of his more than thirty dogs. They all live with him inside the house.

© Adra Pallón - Image from the Demothanasia photography project
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Enrique lives alone with his dog in Oural since his mother passed away two years ago. He spends his days tending to his animals and walking through the mountains of a territory that is in the process of disappearing due to depopulation.

© Adra Pallón - A crucifix inside a now uninhabited house in the village of Pradela.
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A crucifix inside a now uninhabited house in the village of Pradela.

© Adra Pallón - Image from the Demothanasia photography project
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Magdalena observes the windmills, which she says have only increased depopulation because the wealth stays in the large energy industries.

© Adra Pallón - Two cows walk down to the meadows near the sea in Ortigueira.
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Two cows walk down to the meadows near the sea in Ortigueira.

© Adra Pallón - Image from the Demothanasia photography project
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Herminia takes care of Victorina, 93 years old, Pepe's mother. Pepe meanwhile checks his pills as he suffered a stroke a few months ago and is unable to move on his own. Meanwhile Maria, Herminia's sister, helps him with the cooking.

© Adra Pallón - José prepares his food. He lives alone in A Fonsagrada despite his advanced age and difficulty of movement.
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José prepares his food. He lives alone in A Fonsagrada despite his advanced age and difficulty of movement.

© Adra Pallón - Image from the Demothanasia photography project
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Fernando's hens in the countryside. Precariousness is present in rural environments. Those who live off the land have a hard time economically. "What saves me is that I hardly spend on food because I eat everything I produce and my animals produce," says.

© Adra Pallón - Image from the Demothanasia photography project
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Adela and Manuel are the last inhabitants of a village that once had 13 inhabited houses. Adela and Manuel finish the wintry and rainy day playing cards, guarding the animals and collecting eggs from their chickens.

© Adra Pallón - Image from the Demothanasia photography project
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Mari Carmen carries fodder for the cows. There are only three inhabited houses left in this village. In one lives a couple of old people, in another a ninety-three year old woman and her son.

© Adra Pallón - Image from the Demothanasia photography project
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José, 90 years old, turns on the stove. He lived three years in Coruña and in the Pyrenees training in subjects related to agriculture and livestock. He came back to take care of his elderly parents and that is why he stayed in that village.

© Adra Pallón - Image from the Demothanasia photography project
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The fire is advancing out of control towards the village of Folgoso do Courel. The village has been evacuated for fear of being burnt to the ground as has happened to nearby villages.

© Adra Pallón - Several firemen working directly against the advancing fire. After several days the fire is still out of control.
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Several firemen working directly against the advancing fire. After several days the fire is still out of control.

© Adra Pallón - Image from the Demothanasia photography project
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The century-old forest of Souto de Vilar was razed to the ground like the others. The village was also burnt to the ground. Only two houses were saved.

© Adra Pallón - Image from the Demothanasia photography project
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Working day of one of the last shepherds of Manzaneda, Manolo de Palleirós. The goats and sheep spend the summer in the curro, an enclosure where they sleep and eat grass from the meadows during the day.