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44 ANALYSIS AND PROSPECTIVE STUDIES CULTIVAR Issue 22 APRIL 2021 knowledge – reshaped the relationships between the three points on the ecology-community-econ- omy triangle: by public decision, by initiative of the social and economic elites, or by necessity and capacity of the local communities. On the other hand, given the early estab- lishment of the country’s political borders in the Euro- pean context, the geostrate- gic role of systematic occupa- tion of the national territory through settlement policies, while important in military terms, had limited impact in time and space. In this con- text, the demographic history of the country’s rural areas – occupation (density), age and family structure, social composition, migratory movements and evolutionary dynamics – essentially reflects their ecological conditions and how the soci- oeconomic responses developed over time, locally or from outside (the Douro Valley perhaps being the best example), countered, enhanced and overcame these biophysical conditions, or simply succumbed to them. This traditional rural Portugal – the country of geo-history, of the opposition between Atlantic Portugal and Medi- terranean Portugal (Orlando Ribeiro), between feudal Portugal and the Portugal of municipalities (José Mattoso) or, more prosaically, between North and South – was the demographic Portugal that endured until the mid- 20 th century. With the exception of time-limited peri- ods of circumstantial events (wars, epidemics), the population gradually grew in most rural areas, albeit at varying speeds. This was due to continued high birth rates that offset both high infant mortality and 1 Translator’s note: a campaign from 1928 to 1938 during the period of the dictatorship in Portugal whose aim was to achieve self-sufficiency in wheat/bread production. the rural exodus to the cities, more dynamic rural areas or even abroad. The municipality of Pampilhosa da Serra was a pio- neer in breaking this centuries-long trend, with the resident population reaching its height in the 1940 census (around 15,500 people) and systematically declining ever since. Located in the central mountain chain (Cordilheira Central) and with particularly hard biophysical and access conditions, in 2011 total inhabitants were recorded at less than 4,500, i.e., fewer than 1/3 of the number sev- enty years earlier. Even more striking was the fall in the number of children aged under 14 between 1900 (around 4,300) and 2011 (321). Pampilhosa da Serra is not the only municipality whose demographic zenith occurred almost eight decades ago. The same trend is visible, albeit in less dramatic form, in many other municipalities – par- ticularly in the Alentejo region, where the damage of the soils caused by the Campanha do Trigo 1 in the 1930s began a cycle of demo- graphic shrinkage influenced by different factors over time. Depopulation as a structural problem therefore began as a consequence of the exhaus- tion of a model of rural soci- ety founded on agricultural systems whose survival was only possible if based on extreme poverty and harsh living conditions. Unsurprisingly, this population crash first expressed itself in areas where the ecology and responsiveness of local communities heavily limited the possibil- ity or capacity to build a new ecology-communi- … the demographic history of the country’s rural areas … reflects their ecological conditions and how the socioeconomic responses developed over time … countered, enhanced and overcame these biophysical conditions, or simply succumbed to them. Depopulation as a structural problem therefore began as a consequence of the exhaustion of a model of rural society founded on agricultural systems whose survival was only possible if based on extreme poverty and harsh living conditions.