The 25-year-old rancher who wants to bring an abandoned village back to life in Spain

Twenty-five-year-old Daniel González Noriega has been working with his father in a family livestock company since 2018 in the village of Camposolillo in León province in the northwest of Spain. Now he has embarked on the ambitious and exciting challenge of reviving the abandoned village.

González Noriega decided to register in Camposolillo in summer 2025, making him the only resident in the village which sits on the banks of the Porma reservoir. It was the construction of the reservoir in 1968 which led to the inhabitants leaving in the first place.

González Noriega was born in 1999 in Reyero, a few kilometres from Camposolillo. In 2018, after finishing his studies, he and his father set up the VizCatalina livestock farm and since then their work has led them to create "a rather curious herd of cows".

"I want to make my house, my home, here and that's why I registered," Daniel explained to Leonoticias. Although the process has not been easy, he believes that it is the first step to build a future in the village, where he hopes to get the pastures to be able to have his livestock and make zero-kilometre products, producing and preparing meat to sell.

With a lot of hard work Daniel is getting the old Valles del Esla facilities ready, where he wants to combine his work in livestock farming with a commitment to the rural world and tourism. For the moment his business is "modest" but he dreams of being able to provide employment in the future by maintaining his way of working, with "100% sustainable" livestock farming. Because his cows are entirely pasture-raised, the meat retains the essence of quality and proximity.

Daniel knew from the outset that this was not his only objective. With the firm intention of "taking more steps and contributing something different", he is already planning new projects for the facilities when everything starts to take off, from building a restaurant or accommodation to offering a rural tourism experience in which visitors can get to know the beautiful region next to the Porma and the history of those villages that were emptied by the construction of the reservoir and the people who were forced to leave.

"The only thing I want is for the village not to be abandoned like it is now, not to be an area full of weeds. I want the residents, the people who still feel that Camposolillo is theirs, to have a beautiful, well-kept, maintained and clean place. When they look at it, they will feel that it was worth the effort and that the area will be enhanced," explained the young man.

Because, Daniel insists, Camposolillo is not an empty village because it has the most important thing: its locals, who continue to fight, like him, to "defend the name of Camposolillo". The young farmer hopes to have the help of the local town halls and the Junta de Castilla y León.

Daniel is "very excited" to "move forward" and do something "that is good for everyone and that people who pass through Camposolillo see that it has been reborn from being an abandoned village to a clean, curious and active village". The area is well worth the effort, believes the entrepreneur, who says it has "a lot of potential".

Alongside him is the Oriundos de Camposolillo association, made up of residents of the village who have not forgotten their origins and who have supported him at all times. "It is beautiful to see how they still have that feeling, how they still come every year, how they still talk about the village and want it back. From day one they have given me their support and I am eternally grateful to them," said Daniel, proud to have decided to put down roots in his land and with the firm intention that others, after him, will follow his example.