The Methane Hunters Of Melendugno
For centuries, farmers in Melendugno, a town located at the tip of southern Italy’s boot heel, built stone walls to mark the boundaries of their fields, shield their crops from the winds blowing out of North Africa, and divide farmland from pasture.
Today, those same ancient stones stand watch over a changed landscape of parched olive groves, tall metal fences, and barbed wire. Beyond the fences, framed by a few remaining ancient olive trees, sits the Melendugno Reception Terminal — the western endpoint of the Trans Adriatic Pipeline (TAP).