A Soundscape Reserve

Ernesto Pastor is a Spanish creator and community organizer whose work explores how people reconnect with landscapes through experience, storytelling, and attentive listening. He is the driving force behind the Montañas Vacías initiative, a grassroots project that promotes cycling routes through some of the most depopulated regions of Spain, demonstrating how low-impact activities can bring renewed attention and vitality to rural areas. Living and working in close proximity to rewilding initiatives, Pastor collaborates informally with conservation efforts while maintaining a strongly non-profit, community-focused approach.

His project “A Soundscape Reserve (Reserva de Paisajes Sonoros)” is presented as a hand-crafted, 55-page booklet accompanied by recordings collected in different natural environments. Conceived as a “Noah’s Ark of sounds,” it seeks to document and safeguard acoustic environments that are increasingly threatened by noise, habitat loss, and cultural disconnection from nature. The combination of collaged visuals, handwritten notes, and audio invites audiences to slow down and rediscover the act of listening.

The project relates closely to rewilding by emphasizing that ecological restoration is not only about species and habitats but also about sensory awareness. By encouraging people to listen carefully to their surroundings, Pastor argues that understanding leads to care, and care to protection. Soundscapes become sanctuaries rather than commodities, reminding us that restoring wildness also means recovering the possibility of natural silence and acoustic diversity.

Through this work, Ernesto Pastor highlights the cultural dimension of rewilding: nurturing a deeper relationship with landscapes so that their voices – oftenoverlooked – can continue to be heard.

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