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In living memory, thousands of residents in the town of Matera were so poor they lived in damp, dark caves. People were living in the caves here until the 1950s when the Italian prime minister declared this poverty a national scandal and everybody was moved out forcibly moved out of the caves into public housing until a whole way of life ended. Matera is now turning its once shameful caves into an asset. Many of them are being refashioned as holiday homes and fancy hotels. Marco, yeah, it's me. This is your cave. This is my Look at this. It's astonishing. This was a home. Family share the house with donkeys, cow, big animals.
People lived with their animals inside the cave. Flare panic. I sense that you're turning this from something that is shameful or embarrassing or people feel that way about it into something to be incredibly proud of. Exactly. We start to understand that there is a way to live again. We need to be proud of this. Isn't it totally spectacular? Something and somewhere I won't ever forget. I'm gonna enjoy a good night's sleep tonight, I think. Wow. I mean, look at this. This is almost biblical.
Matera isn't following the script of southern Italy's decline. Fantastic. What a completely splendid sight. any wedding, anything like this, it represents rejuvenation, regeneration. So good to see because too many towns and villages in southern Italy have been completely depopulated in recent generations, but here this is this has got a future. it's beautiful. So, we were in the toe of Italy. Now, we're in the arch and we're heading for the heel. And Italy's heel belongs to the region of Pulia, one of the country's most picturesque and productive farming areas. Oh wow. Out there, this is the Adriatic bit of the Mediterranean. Pretty spectacular, eh?
Goodness. So, these are all olive trees down here. Thousands and thousands of them. Pulia is the absolute heart of Italy's olive oil industry, producing more than 50% of the country's entire output. I met up with a plant pathologist called Margarita Diko, who's in love with the olive tree. Margarita, how old do you think this one would be? 2,000 years old. Do you ever just give them a hug? But the soul of the people of Pulia is threatened. Olive trees here are facing a catastrophe.
The region is ground zero for a deadly disease called Zylle. Next day, Margarita took me to the front line. It's completely dry and dead. See, this is so serious some call the disease the olive tree Ebola. To stop it spreading, authorities advise farmers to set up containment zones. This is horrific. This is hundreds of trees that have been chopped down. Government scientists say all the trees in a 100 meter radius of those affected need to be removed.
It could mean a million or more of Pulia's olive trees are destroyed. Olive trees and production around much of the Mediterranean is now threatened. Many locals here vehemently disagree with the containment policy. Margarita is among the respected scientists who think it's a mistake.
