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In 2001 Carol Drinkwater published The Olive Farm, the first in her trilogy about her life, love and olive oil in the South of France. Now, seven years on, her research and writings have brought her face to face with the serious reality of the plight of our planet and the olive tree. Today, her dedication and passion has made her part of a UNESCO World Heritage team brought together to map out an Olive Heritage Trail around the Mediterranean Basin.

Carol Drinkwater: I wrote the trilogy when Michel and I had split up after our accident and he had gone back to Paris; it was my way of keeping faith with the story that I believed was ours and I thought warranted fighting for. And it was then, during that period when I was alone with the olive trees, that I started asking myself questions about its history. As I had no one to discuss the subject with, no one to give me answers about the trees' undiscovered history, I decided to seek out answers. I had no clear picture of what that journey would be, nor where precisely it would take me, neither in a physical or emotional sense.

It was in 2003, when I began to research the subject. Obviously my commitment to the project deepened as I became more passionate about it. It became a personal quest. Back then, I knew next to nothing about several of the civilizations, the Mediterranean peoples, who played crucial roles in the development of olive culture around the Med. The traders, the navigators, the empire-builders. And I'd never been in a war zone before, but I've been in several now.

In my new book, The Olive Tree, I travelled across Algeria. I landed into Algers as the city was being ripped apart by bombs. They were exploding downtown and the streets were in chaos. America declared the country 'a No Go Zone'. My travel and health insurance were invalidated. I was truly out there on my own. The choice was quit or deal with it. But as is so often the case, help was to hand. I was offered the support of an organisation of Algerian beekeepers, predominantly Muslims they were and they guided me across their troubled land, passing me from one to the next like a human parcel! While in Morocco, families of Berbers led me deep into the High Atlases, introducing me to fellow farmers, villagers. It was amazing. Again, it was one of those blessed occasions. Frequently I am asked how I communicate with such different peoples. In North Africa, French is the language but once away from the towns, there was often no common language and I have learned throughout my travels that there is always a way to speak with a fellow man or woman, even if only with sign language and eyes and smiles.

This has been one of the most uplifting discoveries for me: whether or not we have a language in common, there is always the possibility of communication, of exchange. Such extreme situations take you back to the essentials of what human beings are about. This knowledge, this affirmation, remained with me, grew richer throughout my journeys. Whether I'm with people who are suffering because they are victims of war or they are living in countries governed by extreme regimes, ruled by fundamentalist principles, countries where the ordinary people have little or no opportunities for personal expression, such as Libya or Algeria, where ordinary folk lack independence and where the individual counts for next to nothing, unlike here in France, they are all still mothers, wives, farmers, sons of parents etc. I believe that the far greater percentage of people want to love, want to be at peace, want to live their lives according to decent principles. And on these journeys, the olive was a link from one very different group to another, which is why I feel passionate about the project that UNESCO invited me to help put together.

Elsewhere, on the borders of the Med I spent time with others whose lives are fully lived. The Sicilians, for example, who have a colourful, two centuries of Arab domination in their history and language, but have a very different approach to life to the modern-day north Africans.

One of the joys of all these journeys has been encountering, dealing with people who have some regard for, or are in touch with the land; the farmers, the oil makers, the soil experts or water specialists. So, you see, I'm constantly being taken back to the roots, the basics of what life is all about. It's about feeding ourselves, caring for the land, looking after the planet. That's really what this new book has thrown up for me. I fight hard to run our little olive farm organically but the olive fly always gets in the way because there isn't an organic alternative to the pesticides. Although as I say this, a very exciting possibility has arisen. There might now be a fly that preys on the olive fly. It is very exciting, but it's still in laboratory stage.

This issue is very important to me. A question I ask constantly. How can I live an organic life? If I want to produce wholesome food, how can I counter all that is going on in the world: the use of insecticides, pesticides, soil erosion etc? The journey round the western Mediterranean for the new book, The Olive Tree, highlighted many of these questions. It became clear that the issues worrying me are some of the most urgent 21st century issues. And we need to be dealing with them now.

Of course the war in Iraq and similar tragedies require our urgent attention, but they are part of the same questions: Disregard of our planet and lack of respect for one another. Many of us do, of course, care, but those who are 'in charge' how are they looking after OUR earth? The future is at risk. All along these journeys, this was thrown up in front of me. I found southern Spain very confronting. Andalucia, where I'd never visited before, boasts 179 million olive trees. It's the biggest olive -producing and olive-oil-producing region on the planet. It's an industry down there. Talking to a soil specialist in Cordoba I felt quite gloomy. His picture for the future was not a rosy one. It left me feeling depressed and impotent.

'I don't know what to do with this information', I kept telling myself. And then I realised, not only is the situation critical, but many of us are feeling impotent. If we are always fed the negatives, we begin to switch off. People cannot handle a glut of dismal information. Global warming, polluted waterways, lack of water, rising costs, petrol wars etc etc.

The planet is in trouble and what are WE going to do about it? This point in my journey was an epiphany, it was a moment of realisation. It is not fruitful to poleaxe people with negatives. It is essential to seek out those who are using their skills, their visions to be constructive. From thereon, I knew that the new book, The Olive TREE, was about the future at least as much as the past. And I know that UNESCO can do something vital with the Olive Heritage Trail if they can galvanize such a huge machine into action.

Several people warned me on my through Spain against being romantic about the olive tree. 'You're not serving us', they said. And I didn't really understand. These were individuals working for the European Union, for the World Wild Life Fund, or for alternative ways to care for nature, bird foundations, etc. And when I reached the south and talked to soil specialists and water specialists, I began to get a sense of what was going on. And then I went into Morocco. From there I began to seek out ancient ways. I went travelling with Berbers, and learned of some of their traditions. I knew nothing of the argan tree, a fruit very similar to the olive that grows exclusively in one area of Morocco. It was a terrific adventure and a real window on a long forgotten way of life. In Algeria, I visited the desert and learned a little about desertification. I'd never heard of "desertification" before I began these journeys. The drying up of arable lands, of savannahs.

Desertification is going to hit Spain if we don't do something fast. And our ground water is becoming polluted and running short. These are realities that I'd never really considered. I had dreamed of running this farm organically but I hadn't really taken on board the breadth of these 21st century issues.

AMB: Do you see yourself more as a pioneer with these discoveries?

Carol Drinkwater: I hope my new book, The Olive Tree, will offer alternatives, that it will transport my readers to Mediterranean places where together we can see, enjoy what is there and consider what is being lost. To perceive myself as a pioneer is too grandiose, but I have become socially driven in a way that I might not have been before. But it's very much to do with the earth and to do with how people care about one another.

Algeria was mind-blowing because it's not easy to be a woman there. Getting around alone, for example, was almost impossible for me. Fortunately with the help of all those beekeepers I was able to travel around the country. It was a very bizarre set of journeys and I was in a lot of danger. But what I also discovered was that the Algerians are doing vital work down in the desert. They are attempting reforestation and investing in expensive programmes. It is hard to imagine that the Sahara was once fertile savannah land with wild olives growing there, millions of years ago. So they're now looking at trying to reforest the desert with olives trees. The olive tree - hence the title for this book - is a hardy drought-resistant plant. It can work mini miracles with its roots by guiding rainwater beneath the earth's surface and building up new reserves of ground water. The olive tree genuinely has the potential to assist us in getting out of the deep hole, the ecological mess we are in. And I don't just say that because I am passionate about this tree. It is a rare gift of nature.

In Italy, I visited some extraordinary people who are researching, no, putting into practice by grafting, the creation of olive varieties that will withstand drought conditions and minimal irrigation. The olive tree is known to withstand drought, but there are certain, long-forgotten varieties that have grown wild in drought zones for a very long time. The Italians I met with are experimenting on grafting them with sweeter Tuscan trees. It was very uplifting to listen and learn of their visions. I felt quite elated by the possibilities others are proposing to get us out of the hole we're in. So, you see, the book is a journey in many senses and it is ultimately a very optimistic one. I came home so high, so full of positive alternatives for the future.

AMB: Do you know what is the position in France? Are there wake-up calls happening here?

Carol Drinkwater: Yes, there are, but the point is that the olive is not a very big crop here. It seems like it is to us because we live among the trees and particularly if you live on an olive farm. For all of us down here we see olive trees everywhere and we eat olive oil but we're really just one fraction of France. When you travel around the rest of the country it isn't part of their consciousness in the same way. People everywhere are waking up to the Mediterranean diet because they can see it makes more sense, but France and its olive trees are a minor concern. In fact, we consume more olive oil in France than we produce. Only 2% of French farming is bio, organic, but did you know that it is the leading country in Europe with its 2%? Isn't that surprising? I was astounded by that. That doesn't include certain areas of Eastern Europe where a lot of produce is organic because they've never had sufficient funds to buy pesticides, but that's another issue. Still, the produce they're delivering might not yet marry with the European Union health standards, but it is authentically organic. Syrian farmers don't spray their olive trees because there's never been any reason to, they have healthy olive trees.

AMB: How do you see your progress? You give me the impression there's something else bubbling up inside you.

Carol Drinkwater: In the light of this new book, my publishers are keen that I go to work on an olive farm book, a story that sets me back in France, seeing the impacts of what I have discovered on life here. It will be 'Carol home after the journeys'. I will write that Olive Farm book while structuring a fiction trilogy I have been researching for a while. 

Also, as I mentioned, UNESCO have asked me to be part of a team to create an Olive Heritage Trail round the Mediterranean. Rather than a World Heritage Site it will be a series of sites, a trail of them, you might say. I am their ''wild card' because I'm the only non-scientist aboard at this stage. I find it all a little daunting and the bureaucracy can be longwinded - Everything is translated into dozens of languages, and it is progressing at a snail's pace - but the project is very special. It is being directed, managed by a wonderful Greek woman, Katrina. She chairs the meetings and it was she who invited me aboard after she'd read The Olive Route. Suddenly it's "La parole est à Carol" and it's terrifying because you better know concisely what it is you are wanting to say, to contribute to the discussion.

The team includes geologists, geographers, history scientists, and archaeologists, all with serious olive expertise; its history, the olive earth, politics, the Mediterranean. I think, in all, we're about 25 or 26. When we all met, I felt awkward. What am I, an Irish actress, doing here? I was asking myself. We convened in Cyprus for a five-day brain-storming and I didn't know what to expect. Katrina had missed her flight so she was very late arriving. We sat around waiting and it seemed that everyone knew everyone else. I felt quite the odd one out. Michel was in South Africa and I rang him and said "I can't go through with this.' But once Katrina arrived and explained what she felt I could bring to the project, I felt a little calmer and everyone was very welcoming. I have been allocated a few tasks of my own. These are about looking at the project from a creative point of view rather than a scientific one. I believe now that I might have something to contribute and that is very exciting. Because I have taken all these journeys for these two books, I am really the only one who has visited most of the places we have been talking about. It gives the journeys another dimension in my mind too. I have suggested that perhaps we could create a virtual Olive Heritage Trail and use, for example, the songs of the women working in the olive groves in Kabylie in Algeria.

Such songs are dying out because the Berber languages have been minimized. They sing, speak in Berber dialects, not taught in the schools. It is vital to preserve such Mediterranean heritage. I am suggesting that we should gather together all such material from all over the Med. The visitor to the heritage trail site can stop wherever, click and listen to the regional music, look at photographs, videos, see traditional costumes, begin to get a sense of how these people lived. For the moment, UNESCO lacks the finance to create this. I think they hope I can find way of raising the funds. The priority, though, must be to enthuse those who know and care not about olives to be interested in the culture, the history, to begin to comprehend the important role this tree has played in the creation of the modern Mediterranean ways of life. On our last evening in Cyprus we were having dinner in a village restaurant where the proprietors had invited along a dance troupe, locals. The dances were wonderful, so too their singing, and I said to my colleagues, 'Listen, imagine that someone clicks Cyprus on our Heritage Site and this music begins to play.' Several of the team looked at me and said, "Oh Carol, you're full of imagination" and I responded "but this will give texture.' Because they're scientists they see it differently.

My olive books have created an awareness - just a little - and I receive many letters and emails from people, but it is essential to widen the scope. Why would anyone be interested in an Olive Heritage Trail? In what way can we excite and enrich people and also give them a sense of our patrimony? The project is a huge challenge but I believe an exciting and worthwhile one. 

AMB: I agree with you - you have to bring it down to a level that everyone can feel involved. 

Carol Drinkwater: If we can encourage people to visit these places before the cultures die out, perhaps it might regenerate some of the village ways that are being abandoned. Even if at first it's only for eco-tourism at least it keeps the village traditions alive. If all we are to be left with is industrialized olive farms, picking machines etc, instead of families and neighbours gathering together, social habits, cultures will die. It's not just the olive tree, it's all of it. It's our patrimony. I didn't consider any of this when I started out. Bombs in Iraq, Lebanon, wherever, are blowing up all traces of what had existed previously. This is aside from the physical, ecological damage to the planet. It's essential that we find a means of chronicling what remains before it is destroyed. That's the way I feel I've changed since I began this journey. I've become extremely passionate about this.

AMB : And you've got a fuller picture?

Carol Drinkwater: Yes, I like to think that I have a broader view now. When we were in Cyprus, we were taken to visit a pre-Christian olive mill, not yet open to the public. During the bus ride, I was talking to a local archeologist while on the opposite side of the aisle sat a lone geographer. We were riding through lovely hilly countryside. The geographer was holding a map of Cyprus, which he stared at all time time, tracing our trajectory with his finger. We travelled through beautiful scenery. It was a lovely autumn day. The geographer only lifted his head when we came to signposts or crossroads. He then pinpointed them on his map. He never looked out the window, did not see what I was seeing. This is not a criticism, not at all. We each of us are caught up in our own particular view of the world. He wasn't sharing the journey I was experiencing. He was a cartographer on a journey. It was very interesting for me to observe that difference, and to remind myself that each of us has our own very personal perception of things. 

AMB: Which is why you're vital to the project. 

Carol Drinkwater: I hope so. I didn't think there was anything I could bring to it at the beginning, but now that I'm impassioned I do believe I can. I also have an energy that might help ignite the machine. I am constantly asking "Where are we at?" Katrina has so many other projects to deal with. She is director of Cultural Programmes at UNESCO. If, for some reason, UNESCO cannot see this programme through, then I am determined to. I want to sign off knowing that for future generations the Olive Heritage Trail, this splendid portion, full of adventures and stories, of Mediterranean history has been recorded for posterity. 

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If you've enjoyed reading our interview with Carol Drinkwater you may like to visit her website for more information about her work with the olive tree and UNESCO. Her book, The Olive Tree, is published by Weidenfeld & Nicolson and is due out on October 16 2008.