Invisible Landscapes,Invisible People: Juniper Picking at the End of the Line

Abstract

This article documents the activities of two of the last juniper berry pickers of the Catalan Pyrenees. We describe how their work has been affected by rural depopulation, hyperregulation, and climate change. Junipers mostly grow in open pastures that are being colonized by bushes and trees. Their berries are sold to one of the main Catalan gin-making companies. Juniper berry pickers, thus, conduct their work in transitional areas: pastures in the process of becoming forests. Working in areas perceived as “lost,” in transition, or worthless scrubland by most rural and urban populations has affected how the pickers are perceived. Indeed, these forms of foraging go largely unseen by most users of the mountains and, despite the fact that they gather these cones for large commercial companies, they seem to operate at the margins of mainstream perceptibility.

Introduction

It was during an evening stroll, just before dusk. We had gone to look at the bee eater's colony that hangs over the power cables that crest the top of the ridge behind the village. But it was too late. With the heat gone, the patchy clearings of pasture were no longer a-buzz. The insects were gone and with them the shiny birds that had chased them all day long. As we entered the forest, we became aware of other sounds. Not buzzing, but a soft, slow staccato—the unexpected crack of dry wood hitting something in quick, percussive succession. It was not a woodpecker—the sound was too distinct, and the rhythm unfamiliar. Indeed, the sound seemed entirely out of place in this Pyrenean evening forest. Eager to find its source, we followed the call.

Three hundred meters into the forest, we encountered a middle-aged couple, Jordi and Maria, busying over some bushes. Circular nets, held by a rope, were suspended from their necks, and braced against their stomachs. In one hand, they held a short stick, 30 to 40 cm long, with which they hit the branches; with their other gloved hand, they steadied the net, gathering the dark berries that fell from the branches. Once their dog had stopped barking, we approached and asked what were they doing. “Collecting ‘ginebró’ berries” (juniper berries, Juniperus communis), they explained. Their presence in the forest was an utter surprise, revealing a new element of sylvan life that we had never encountered before, despite having worked in the Pyrenees for over two decades. Never before had we seen or heard of juniper berry pickers in the area.

In the last decade, “Gin and tonic,” has experienced something of a revival (Łuczaj et al. 2012). It has become a fashionable drink in Catalonia and elsewhere, with a rich array of brands to choose from, some international, some, local micro-distilleries. Juniper, too, has become—like other products made from traditional forest ingredients (Svanberg and Ståhlberg 2021; Weiss et al. 2020)—fashionable and sought after again (Reyes-García et al. 2015; Schunko, Grasser, and Vogl 2015). As a country with a long and sustained tradition of foraging, it should perhaps have come as no surprise to learn that juniper was still being harvested in the Catalan mountains (Tardío, Pardo-de-Santayana, and Morales 2006). Indeed, the gathering of juniper can be traced back millennia, as a classic commodity in historical European plant trade networks (Lange 1998; Schulp, Thuiller, and Verburg 2014). So why had we never been aware of this activity before now?

It soon became clear that we were not alone in failing to notice these enduring forms of foraging. When we called the largest supplier of forest products in Spain several months later, the owner was surprised to learn that there were still pickers gathering juniper berries in Spain. She had assumed that elders had retired, and that younger generations had failed to replace them, dissuaded by the ever-growing complication of paperwork associated with wild foraging (accountability of owners permits, traceability permits, health regulations, and so on), and the low profitability of the time-per-unit gathering cost, which threatened to drive everybody out of business. This research draws on interviews with Jordi and Maria, the two remaining foragers who still conduct commercial juniper berry picking in this region; a representative of the gin company that buys their berries; agents from other Catalan gin companies (N = 12); a spokesperson of the largest non-wood forest products (NWFP) import company in Spain; and ad hoc conversations with multiple users of the mountains (hikers, mushroom pickers, village dwellers, hunters, and so on).

As a country that has experienced radical rural abandonment, compounded by the declining profitability of rural activities, in recent decades, Spain has witnessed the disappearance of many forms of foraging, and with them a particular habitus (Bourdieu 1984) a form of being in the world with fundamental socioecological consequences (Cevasco, Moreno, and Balzaretti 2015). These ecological and cultural shifts represent the loss of a fundamental knowledge base and relational heritage and experience (Pratson, Adams, and Gould 2023), as well as the disappearance of the productive pressure that such activities place on these types of plants (Mateo-Martín et al. 2023). Assuming that Spanish sources were not to be found, the NWFP import company owner acknowledged that for years she had sourced juniper berries from the Balkans and Eastern Europe, which recently had also struggled to meet growing demand. This information is corroborated by the literature that confirms that a disproportionate amount of the picking that occurs in Europe, occurs in Eastern part of the continent (Lovrić et al. 2020, 2021). Rising standards of living, growing urbanization, climate change had all conspired to diminish yields. Increased demand and the Ukrainian war have also affected Eastern Europe's supply chain.

Bushes That are Trees

After spending time with Jordi and Maria in these bushy landscapes, we came to realize that often, or always, shrubs represent a transitional category, both from an ecological viewpoint and a perceptual one. Bushy areas, or shrublands, have come to be thought of as transitional in sense that they constitute an interstitial, liminal state, as abandoned pastures turn into forest. Even the term “bushes” conveys diminutive marginality—forgotten as quickly as the word has left the mouth. In the past, scholars have often discussed how the Pyrenean landscape has shifted from productive to abandoned, from site of agriculture to subject of conservation policies, from pasture to forest (Vaccaro and Beltran 2010). An intermediate step in this transition is the progressive colonization of pasture—first by tall grasses, followed by diverse shrubs that, in turn, cede their space to trees. These shrubs are fundamental part of the forest transition as they provide a sheltered environment for saplings, offering protection against the elements and ruminants (Rousset and Lepart 1999; Thomas, El-Barghathi, and Polwart 2007). Juniperus are, in fact, at the heart of—and instrumental to—forest succession in the European subalpine and alpine pastures. As Allegrezza et al. point out, “shrubs of Juniperus […] play a crucial role in the successional sequence of plant communities acting as nurse for different species, but only after reaching a certain size” (2013, 616). These plants function as tree nurseries that:

promote the formation of an island of fertility under its canopy by accumulating a considerable amount of organic matter, N, P, Ca²⁺, Mg²⁺ and K⁺ in a few decades. Juniperus shrubs improve soil hydrological properties and mitigate the daily range of soil temperature, reducing the exposure of co-existing plants to high temperatures and water loss through soil evaporation (ibidem, 616).

As one shepherd we interviewed put it, when shrubs appear, it signals that a landscape is “getting dirty.” This perspective was echoed by an ecologist we spoke to, who described the presence of shrubbery, as evidence that “the landscape is closing.” In other words, the presence of shrubs and bushes are not perceived as a state of nature, in and of themselves, but rather as a transient inconvenience—a gloomy harbinger of incipient loss. “When you see the escoba [Scottish broom] growing in a pasture, the pasture is already lost. It will take over. The sheep will not be able to take care of it. Only fire would, and we are not allowed to use fire anymore,” lamented a Pyrenean farmer. Juniper is never too far behind the escoba.

Despite its ubiquitous presence, 80% of the agricultural land of the Pyrenees has been abandoned (Khorchani et al. 2021), bushes in general, and juniper in particular, are not much more than a hazy background of these landscapes. The eye instinctively passes over them, conditioned as it is to only focus on socially relevant elements, like pasture or forest. Ironically, junipers are technically trees, even if they seem more like bushes in transitioning pastureland. Low to the ground, and growing in areas that are exposed to ferocious mountains winds (Lebreton and Bayet 1994), they have the prickly density of shrubbery. By the time they reach tree-like proportions, the forest is catching up, and larger and faster growing species like black pine or birch, will often smother them (Velázquez et al. 2022).

Pasture is a productive agro-ranching category, while forests are an environmental category valued by the silvicultural and environmentalist mindsets. By contrast, these bushy areas are a sort of no man's land that are often referred to by ranchers and conservationists in pejorative terms that embody the concept of disturbance and anomality. However, conservationists, are divided when discussing the interactions between disturbance and diversity in the framework of human agency. In the Mediterranean, like in most landscapes, human agency is either conceptualized as a ruination driver, or as a net contributor to diversity (Blondel 2006). While it is broadly recognized that human agency has contributed to changes of plant distribution for centuries, there is disagreement on how to value the net result of landscape management (Mazzoleni et al. 2004). The land abandonment in the Mediterranean basin over the last seventy years has challenged longstanding assumptions of this debate, with the decrease of rare and endemic species and an increase of common species linked to forest ecosystems (Sirami et al. 2010). This debate has been compounded by cultural values and affective attachments: recreationists and landscape managers tend to prefer the forest for the wilderness it is believed to symbolize (Gomez-Limon and de Lucio Fernandez 1999). Despite ecological research on ecotones, transitional areas, intermediary, or half open spaces, with their abundance of rare species, grasses, butterflies, and flowers, are also largely invisible. The research on narratives of land abandonment in the Iberian Peninsula has foregrounded forest regrowth, with an emphasis on forest management and conservation, or the loss of rural livelihoods (Frei et al. 2020; Quintas-Soriano et al. 2023), to the neglect of bushy terrains.

In depopulated mountain ranges, junipers have become a prominent feature of the landscape. Their successful colonization is thanks to a number of generic factors: unshaded open ground, short competing vegetation, bare or disturbed ground, and low herbivore pressure (Broome et al. 2017). Juniperus is an evergreen gymnosperm, with a male and female form—while both produce cones (berries), only berries from the female form are used for gin making and as a spice. Although ginebró (juniper in Catalan) is a well-known term, many of the people we asked about juniper—hikers, village dwellers, and people with experience of mountain life—often, not knowing exactly what it looked like it, requested to see pictures. While many recognized the plant, few knew it was juniper. They had unknowingly hiked, picked mushrooms, or run past these bushy trees for years, not realizing their berries were a key ingredient in the gin and tonic they loved to drink at night. As one distillery technician reminded us, “gin without junipers is just vodka.”

In the Pyrenees, as with many rural environments, the forest transition applies (Barbier, Burgess, and Grainger 2010; Mather, Fairbairn, and Needle 1999; Jacob et al. 2008; Roura-Pascual et al. 2005). These transition areas are often referred to as ecotones—areas with high levels of biological dynamism and abundant biodiversity (Cronon 2011). The clearing of the land by indigenous groups with the aid of fire, for instance, to create patches of highly productive land for gathering berries produced by the early plant colonizers and the hunting of small game, is well documented (Pyne 1997). In a territory where traditional practices have faded away due to modernization, depopulation, productive specialization, and administrative and scientific prohibition, these clearings are no longer viewed as sites for foraging or hunting. In areas subject to conservation policies, a large percentage of the land (well over 50% of some Pyrenean districts), clearing is actually discouraged (Vaccaro and Beltran 2007). The term “traditional” in itself, requires some consideration. While it refers to both history and heritage, and to changing ways of life (Heelas, Lash, and Morris 1996), it also encompasses the continuous reshaping brought about by political and commercial forces (Del Mármol, Morell, and Chalcraft 2014).

Beyond their use in gin-making, juniper berries have a rich history of medicinal use, as detailed in Raina et al. (2019). According to the authors, Western American tribes, blend and brew juniper berries and Berberis root bark in herbal teas. These berries were used as well as a contraceptive, anorexigenic agent, and in managing diabetes (Tilford 1997; McCabe, Gohdes, and Morgan 2005). Similarly, in traditional Turkish medicine, the berries were valued for their diuretic, antiseptic, and gastrointestinal benefits. Their anti-inflammatory properties have also been recognized empirically and passed down through European folk medicine practices (Mascolo et al. 1987; Tunon, Olavsdotter, and Bohlin 1995). They have also been employed in treating ailments such as migraines, rheumatic arthritis, and gout. This comprehensive review also details how, in Romania, juniper fruits are steeped into infusions or tinctures, known for their diuretic, antiseptic, and skin-conditioning effects (Bojor 2003). In Catalonia, these fruits are reputed for their antiseptic and styptic qualities, aiding in conditions like piles and infantile tuberculosis. Various parts of the juniper tree, including its aerial branches and bark, have been used to treat a range of ailments such as cystitis, bladder issues, respiratory disorders, and skin conditions. Historically, juniper oil has also been used to treat cattle injuries (Bonet and Reixach 2013). Juniper oil was once used on animals for its anti-inflammatory, cytotoxic, hypoglycemic and hypolipidemic effects (Raina et al. 2019), these effects have been observed on milk consumers of treated animals (Morsy et al. 2012). Numerous sheep, goat and cow ranchers were using juniper extract, oil or tincture as a daily basis. These uses have been documented across rural Europe (Benítez, González-Tejero, and Molero-Mesa 2012; Biró et al. 2014; Mattalia et al. 2021). In short, the literature enumerates the plant's considerable therapeutic potential (Pepeljnjak et al. 2005; Gumral et al. 2015; Banerjee, Singh, and Chatterjee 2013). This ancestral wisdom has been corroborated by science, which has confirmed its antioxidant, antibacterial, antiviral, and antifungal properties.

This rich ethnobiological legacy and the know-how needed for these preparations are disappearing. The experience of the pickers we stumbled upon, Maria and Jordi, is symptomatic of this knowledge loss. Today, they only sell berries to gin producers. In other words, the connection between the cones and their multiple medicinal uses, in the Catalan context, has been severed. This same attenuation of local knowledge of the range of medicinal properties of juniper berries has been documented across rural Europe and, in this case, it represents a repurposing of this plant solely for gin production (Benítez, González-Tejero, and Molero-Mesa 2012; Biró et al. 2014; Mattalia et al. 2021).

From Abandonment to Marginality

In the Pyrenees, both juniper bushes and those that glean a livelihood from them, appear invisible. What explains the lack of literature or even awareness of the existence of their trade? Interviews with representatives from gin distilleries across Spain foregrounded Eastern Europe as the primary source of juniper berries, and made no mention of local purveyors. While there is some literature, especially French, on the new peasantries, or “neo-rurals” and the emergence of a new industry of wild plant picking (Chabert, Julliand, and Moreau 2013; Cambecèdes and Garreta 2018), “traditional” picking has received less attention. Historical literature identifies traditional picking or “gleaning” with marginality and survival (Larrère and de la Soudière 1985). Picking is something the farmers did on the side, a secondary, informal activity to complement the resources generated by their main productive activities—agriculture, or ranching—or performed by fringe social actors without their own means of production.

The form of juniper berry picking practiced by Maria and Jordi is somewhat different. It might, instead, be understood as a form of profitable commercial wild harvesting, involving the sustainable gathering of large quantities of berries (Shackleton, Shanley, and Ndoye 2007; Weiss et al. 2020). They adapt their techniques to the biology and the ecology of the plant. The external branches have clusters of small spherical berries, which turn dark purple in fall and are the fruits from last year's bloom. The green berries represent this year's bloom, which will be next year's yield. Jordi and Maria are careful to distinguish between the two. Taking one branch at the time, they hit the branches and catch last year's riper berries in their nets, leaving the green ones to ripen on the branch. A harvested juniper, they say, is easy to identify—it looks less dense, and only green berries adorn its branches. This has allowed Jordi and Maria to claim, with confidence, that they are the only juniper pickers in this region. The fact that a juniper tree has two seasons of berries on it, but one only is picked each year, makes sustainability tangible. The future season is there for the pickers to see and protect. However, the way Maria and Jordi narrate their work does not emphasize a deliberate effort to harvest in a sustainable way, nor to consciously intervene in the development of the landscapes they work on.

In the case of this couple, their assumed marginality as gleaners, presents an awkward fit. They are vignerons and have a farm in the lowlands, in the upper Anoia. Most of their land is devoted to vineyards, and they sell their grapes to vintners of the area. In early Fall, once the grape harvest is done, and the juniper cones are ripening, they head to the mountains. They do not consider picking a marginal occupation, but see it as part of the sequence of activities that structure their year and enhance their quality of life. Although their farm, implements a de facto commercial monoculture, across the year, they—like a wide array of traditional agricultural communities—they diversify their productive activities (vineyards, juniper picking, timber cutting, tractorist) to minimize risk. If a crop fails in a particular year they can rely on additional income from other sources (Altieri 2018). It would be hard, however, to brand these pickers as “traditional.” Although their tools are low-tech—a couple of boxwood sticks they cut themselves, and two (handmade) round nets—theirs is an economic practice fully integrated into a larger capitalistic endeavor. They are the beginning of a particular commodity chain (Tsing 2015); they pick for a conglomerate of companies that manufactures several gin labels. One of these labels, with a Mediterranean theme, has become a global icon (this particular brand, although still produced on the premises, was recently bought by an American company that recognized its value). Due to the low concentration of juniper in gin, Maria and Jordi's harvest, on a good year, can cover 70% to 100% of the company's production. Due to the scarcity of local berries, the couple now have an exclusive agreement with this corporation. The agreement, however, transcends the bounds of a capitalistic transaction: both parties confirm that it is founded on long-term friendship between the pickers and the family that owns the company.

The commodity chain we outline here, comprises much more than a straight commercial transaction that codes a cost benefit analysis based on the balance between supply and demand. Rather, it includes a net of social relationships linking Maria and Jordi with the owners of the land where juniper is gathered, with state officials, rural agents or even police, who they encounter periodically (and that might be ask them for identification, or why they wander through the forests), as well as gin company representatives who secure exclusive agreements, and, even, with the bars and costumers that have revitalized gin and tonic consumption (Appadurai 1988; Miller 1995). In literal terms, this expanding net connects abandoned patches of Pyrenean pasture with bars across the world. The social life of juniper, the economic, but specially, the social meaning and value of this unassuming cones is radically changes by this itinerary. Its trajectory offers another example of the re-emergence and revalorization of NWFPs (Bharucha and Pretty 2010; Shackleton, Shanley, and Ndoye 2007; Weiss et al. 2020).

Since Maria and Jordi do not produce a lot of berries and this company produces so much gin that it needs huge quantities, how is it that their harvest—of several hundred kilograms—is considered of central importance for these companies? Counterintuitive, perhaps, but Jordi and Maria offer something that Eastern European suppliers cannot—a rare added value (Tsing 2013). Their berries are local, picked by hand on the slopes of Mediterranean ranges. If you want to claim to be a producer of local Mediterranean gin, or any other proximity category, you must have some of those berries to throw in your mix.

Jordi and Maria might be understood to be interstitial players, not because they are neo-rurals (Pinton, Julliand, and Lescure 2015), they are not, but in the sense that they operate in the space between agro-ranching and tourism or silviculture. The Pyrenean mountains have old well documented networks of NWFP local traders that operated at the margins of the urban world (Frigolé 2007). These pickers, Maria and Jordi, do their foraging in the shrubland, in a socially invisible area, in the sense that is not cared for, and they, themselves, wandering around these “useless” abandoned pastures in transition, seem likewise to have become invisible. This invisibility is exacerbated by the fact that, in this region, this is an occupation that has all but died out. When they started picking in their youth, they knew several dozen pickers. They were mostly elders, who have since either retired of passed on. Today, they tell us, the berries on the trees tell them that nobody else is picking. When we ask them how can they be sure of this, pointing out that the territory is vast and they might not necessarily coincide with others, they respond without hesitation. “We go all over the place, here and there, and we have not run into a harvested juniper in years. One can tell if someone has been there. There is nobody else picking in this part of the Pyrenees.” The situation in Catalonia seems quite distinct, and counter to the revival of foraging occurring in France, for instance, where the picking sector (and the research on it), have grown in recent years (Julliand et al. 2019).

Maria and Jordi can prove several centuries of occupation of their farm. While their older son does not want to follow the agricultural tradition of the family, their younger son will soon take over the vineyards. However, he refuses to forage, so there will be no generational renewal for the picking. Maria and Jordi predict that this practice will disappear from these mountains, as from most places, when they retire (Faruk et al. 2024). While collecting berries they are often asked by locals, here and there, how much they make per hour or per kilo. The abundance of juniper everywhere makes it seem like an easy way to gain extra income. However, once they learn more about the actual economic and working conditions, few try to pursue this line of work. To their knowledge, none has persevered. Maria and Jordi acknowledge that while they make some offseason money from these activities, especially in the last few years as demand and scarcity have driven up prices, it does not compensate the hours of effort. They continue because they like it: they enjoy being in the mountains, walking, and sleeping in the caravan, being on the road for days, and the companionship that it forges.

Invisibilities

Many of the patches worked by Jordi and Maria are nearby roads; accessibility is, of course, a bonus. Some locations are extremely picturesque, but mainly are unremarkable, empty lots between road curves. While traveling with them, they told us about the history of some of these areas. Nearby the Cantó pass, they work a few bushes scattered across narrow grassy areas on top of a ridge. At one point they signal down, westwards, to the bottom of a side hill that is more than 500 meters, and they say, “we used to pick all the way from here to that ravine down by the other side of the hill. There were hundreds of junipers here, now, you see, just a handful.” The area Jordi is pointing at is covered by a solid pine forest. “Now, all that part is lost.” Two days later, while picking in la Cerdanya, 80 km eastwards, and 2 km away from a well-known ski resort, they soon realize that two thirds of the patch they have come to work on, are gone. The lot has been razed and flattened by heavy machinery, probably to build some apartments.

The lands they work are on the move, with uncertain futures—inexorably transformed by the gradual, almost imperceptible work of nature, or the sudden hand of men. These are, for the most part, unremarkable, forgotten corners of the landscape. This invisibility washes over those that linger in their midst, making them largely imperceptible as well.

Despite this invisibility, while working on the slopes, amongst the junipers, Maria and Jordi, are unquestionably linked to larger economic frameworks. They own and manage a mainstream farm devoted to vineyards (sixty tonnes of grapes per year) and they sell to important vintners. In this domain of their economic life, they are clearly “visible,” in the sense they are part of a clearly defined and recognized commodity chain. Their fields are clearly visible, identifiable, and quantifiable via aerial pictures. However, when they climb into their caravan and go on the road in the search of junipers, they take on an almost transhuman role—a mobility regime difficult to read from the perspective of our sedentary urban society. They become “invisible” when they climb into the caravan and head to the mountains to work the bushes. They travel with an old jeep and a caravan. They sleep in the caravan, and they use the jeep for the dirt tracks, to get closer to the juniper bushes. The caravan is the archetypal touristic vehicle, which fits neatly in the Pyrenean recreational scene. Anyone driving by, or behind their caravan will assume that they are meandering tourists—not “harvesters.”

However, neither is Juniper foraging in the Pyrenees a frozen traditional activity. Despite few technological changes, the context has changed. The only concession to mechanization is the use of a small hydraulic mill to separate the berries from the leaves and bark. The depopulation and the disappearance of all competition means they can go anywhere and there are no fights for permits or to secure access to the best patches. Nonetheless, they note with some chagrin, that although they “now have the entire [Catalan] Pyrenees for ourselves, and despite that, we are able to collect a lot less than a few years back.” The lack of extractive pressure over the plant suggests that harvesting should not the problem (Giraud et al. 2021). Rather, it is the bushes that are less productive. They blame not the persistent drought that has affected the Mediterranean basin, but rather seasonal changes in temperature. Summer is hotter and longer than ever, the fall is now often subject to summer temperatures, and winter is often short and mild, followed by cold snaps. They suggest that the mild temperatures are responsible for the lower juniper productivity: the bushes blossom too soon, while the cold snaps decimate a significant amount of the flowering. Tardive frosts are also a major risk faced by winegrowers. Budburst, the beginning of the growth cycle after dormancy, is temperature driven (Cameron, Petrie, and Barlow 2022). Observed and projected increases in temperatures (IPCC 2013) advance both last frost and grape budburst dates. Future scenarios are pessimistic for colder continental regions. This process is well documented in the wine industry, where today's varieties of grape are being selected to adapt to these new temperatures regimes (Sgubin et al. 2018).

The grape harvest season ends sooner (between two weeks and a month sooner) because the grapes mature faster. The juniper picking season starts sooner as well, but is now a lot shorter than it used to be. According to Maria and Jordi, more and more of the berries—probably because of the scarcity of water or the longer higher temperatures—turn brown and bristle, becoming dry and worthless. The picking season starts in late September, and is mostly complete by late November. They recount how they used to start in October and pick into January or even February. Both have noticed the same offset in the grape harvest period: they used to harvest their grapes into late September but, nowadays, tend to finish by the end of August, or early September. This phenomenon has been observed by numerous other winegrowers. For instance, in France, modelers project that the harvest will move up around forty days by the end of the twenty-first century (Ollat and Touzard 2014).

This attribution of invisibility to people and bushes is, of course, burdened with biases. It attempts to pronounce the irrelevance of an environment and of those that work, for a mostly urban mainstream society. For Maria and Jordi, these transitional bushy areas, are very much visible, very much alive. They have also become something tangible to us after we started working with the pickers. To be fair, transitional ecotones had been a recognized theoretical category for some time (Forman and Gordon 1986). But theory and practice do not always march together and, in reality, despite working in these environments for decades, the juniper and its associated species had been very much at the periphery of our urban perception. Landscapes are social constructions and, as such, they are explained and given meanings that continuously evolve (Johnson and Hunn 2012). While agroforestry—land-use systems that simultaneously draw on trees or shrubs and agricultural crops—has been an historical fixture of most human managed landscapes, including rural Europe (Mosquera-Losada et al. 2009), these systems have been traditionally misunderstood by modern agronomic science, which has tended to focus on homogeneous (monocrop) approaches to natural resources management. This has begun to change through the development of agroecological theories and practices (Den Herder et al. 2017). If research on agroforestry has been on the rise for a couple of decades, the loss of agroforest systems in Europe has been more than significant (Mosquera-Losada et al. 2018; Nerlich, Graeff-Hönninger, and Claupein 2013).

What the juniper case reveals is the existence of a world between the forest and the pastures, which modern environmental management regimes have failed to see. This invisibility came about with the advent modernity. For example, European Union agricultural subventions, based on cultivated surface, do not recognize transitional ecotones with high bushes or forests. Whereas all ranchers know that goats need shade during hottest time of days, especially as temperatures increase due to climatic changes, farmers must prove that the fields they get money for, are “used,” which basically means that they are clear of bushes and trees (Estrada and Vaccaro 2022). As already noted, Jordi and Maria, do not fit the classic agroforestry model. They are not the owners or the managers of all the areas glean. As such, they might be thought of as interlopers—akin to transhumant gatherers, that move across the countryside searching for the best patches of berries. And they undertake this work in an almost empty landscape, where few care if these junipers are harvested or not. It is a context that does not resemble a market integrated productive activity, but this is what it is. Would mobile workers have been visible or even allowed in the densely populated Pyrenees of the nineteenth century, where every track of land was spoken for? Were these kind of pickers marginal social actors sneaking from one patch of land to the next, or were they an essential part of the local agroforestry system, paying for their right to harvest in kind, with product, or with money? In countries like France, with high demand and decent profitability, nowadays, some pickers pay fees to landowners in order to secure access to the berries (Locqueville et al. 2024).

Conclusion

Foraging for junipers is an activity that, everything seems to indicate, will soon disappear from Catalonia. Many think it already has. This disappearance can be connected to rural depopulation, low profitability, high levels of regulation (traceability, ownership permits, and EU bureaucracy that does not attend to the particularities of the local contexts), and decreasing biological productivity, probably connected to climate change. Maria and Jordi work in areas of transition from pastures to forests—of little to no interest to ranchers, foresters, tourists, or environmentalists. This work in the grey zone invisibilizes their activity. Most people are not even aware these forms of foraging still exist. Despite being at the source of an important commodity chain, this couple, and the berries they gather, seem to be invisible within their own society. They are, however, key to the elaboration of a high-end food specialty, Mediterranean gin. They thrive in a very small niche: one generated by the contemporary fetishization of gin, fueled by the postmodern obsession for specialty, artisanal products.

This article follows a commodity chain that comprises much more than a straight commercial transaction. The transformative itinerary of juniper berries—from the branches of the bushes colonizing abandoned pastures in the low ramparts of the Pyrenees, to prized ingredient of expensive cocktails served in high-end bars worldwide—includes a thick set of transformative social relationships. These cones, once collected, are sold at 11 or 12 euros per kilo (a single gin and tonic, with a minimal concentration of juniper, in many places, will cost the same or more). This economic metamorphosis also carries within it, Jordi and Maria's interactions with landowners and state officials, as well as the friendships that have facilitated their exclusive arrangement with the gin company, and their indirect ties to today's complex culture of entertainment and alcohol consumption.

The demographic collapse endured by the Pyrenees during the last century, combined with the associated reduction of productive pressure on its environments, resulted in the abandonment of one of its main human sustained habitats, the pastures. This has paved the way for an exponential expansion of juniper in a moment when local picking has all but faded to black. Today, Jordi and Maria, have the entire Pyrenees to collect juniper berries. There is no competition—no rush to the best trees before someone else gets them. Climate change is the rival, which in the last few years, seems to pose the greatest threat to their profit margins. They tell us that it is the seasonal shifts that have robbed them of berries.

Foraging is an activity that despite being fully integrated into the capitalistic market, and mainstream gin production, has been mostly conducted in the margins of modern society. It is extremely seasonal, and therefore cannot sustain a family on a yearly basis. The juniper is a tree that is an integral part of the ecological process of degradation of high mountain pastures or, depending on the point of view, a sign of the return to the wild as a predecessor of forests to come. It disappears when forests consolidate. In this interregnum between pasture and forest, the juniper thrives even if its pickers appear to be on the wane.