Italy’s Robinson Crusoe asked to leave island
Though being alone on an island might be a nightmarish situation for some, Mauro Morandi has been doing that exact thing by choice for 31 years.
Morandi’s catamaran washed up on the shore of Budelli Island, found in a stretch of water between Sardinia and Corsica, in 1989. When he learned the island’s caretaker was looking to retire from his post, Morandi sold his boat and took on the job.
After decades protecting one of Italy’s most beautiful islands, Morandi, known as Italy’s Robinson Crusoe, has surrendered his post in response to years of pressure from authorities.
Budelli Island is one of the seven islands that make up Maddalena Archipelago National Park and is considered the most beautiful of them all because of its Pink Beach.
In the early 1990’s, the Italian government claimed Pink Beach was a place of “high natural value” and closed off to protect its fragile ecosystem. With only some areas accessible to visitors, the island quickly went from hosting thousands of people a day to only one inhabitant calling it home.
Fast forward to 2016, when Maddalena National Park challenged Morandi’s right to live on the island after a three-year legal battle ruled the park owned the island.
A petition with over 18,000 signatures opposing his eviction pressured local politicians to delay the move indefinitely.
But, Morandi announced in a Facebook post that he had decided to leave the island at the end of April 2021 after several eviction threats from authorities.
“I hope[d] to die here and be cremated and have my ashes scattered in the wind,” the 81-year-old told National Geographic.
Because he believes all life will reunite with the Earth, he has stayed on the island without compensation.
Morandi has guarded the island’s environment with fervour and educated summer visitors about the ecosystem and how to protect it.
“I’m not a botanist or a biologist,” Morandi said. “Yes, I know names of plants and animals, but my work is much different than this. To be able to care for a plant is a technical task - I try to make people understand [why] the plant needs to live.”
During the winter is a much lonelier time. Morandi would go for periods of more than 20 days without any human contact.
“I’m sort of in prison here,” he said. “But it’s a prison that I chose for myself.”
When Wi-Fi eventually came to the island, Morandi took it in his stride and shared his lifestyle with the world through social media to expose people to its beauty.
“Love is an absolute consequence of beauty, and vice versa,” Morandi said. “When you love a person deeply you see him or her as beautiful, but not because you see them as physically beautiful … you empathise with them, you’ve become a part of her and she’s become a part of you. It’s the same thing with nature.”