Old-fashioned shepherding for the European ecosystem

Pastoralism has helped the environment to regenerate for centuries. A Spanish movement is helping to trim back overgrown roads. Although the seasonal migration of herds, or transhumance, was once prevalent across the continent, Spain is the only country worldwide with a network of legally-protected drove roads for the movement of herds.

Livestock farmers have been grazing their flocks across Europe for centuries, with shepherds making long journeys with their animals. Shepherding is far from an extinct profession, according to a 2015 UN Environment Programme Report, between 200 and 500 million people worldwide are engaged in pastoralism. Nevertheless, we are somehow inclined to think of it as an outdated process of the distant past and, as such, it has been largely overlooked in sustainability discussions.

According to Spanish shepherd Jesús Garzón, this is a huge mistake. He was once involved in environmental protection, and in the early 1990s, because of the dwindling amount of wood in the Spanish countryside, he decided to bring back transhumance practised by his ancestors for almost a thousand years.

This kind of animal husbandry is about moving the animals: the shepherd guides his flock for over many kilometres for grazing and the animals naturally fertilize and transport seeds along the way - this means that each sheep transports about 5,000 seeds and fertilises the land with 3kg of manure daily, thus a large number of wild plants (including trees) can reproduce efficiently with this method. Although transhumance was once prevalent across the continent, today Spain is the only country in the world with a network of legally-protected drove roads for the movement of herds.

This was not enough to sustain traditional herding. According to Garzón, the reason for this is the poor condition of the roads; if not enough animals pass through them day after day, these paths become overgrown with weeds. Moreover, although the law was enacted as early as 1995, not much has happened since then, for example, drove ways are still not marked or fenced off by the authorities. Because of their condition, herders are hesitant to use them.

There are still plenty of animals: although a lack of official data makes it difficult to know the number of sheep owned by Spanish farmers, a 2011 survey found that there were 270,000 transhumant sheep in the country. (Which is negligible compared to an estimated 1.3 million animals at the end of the 20th century.)

Garzón estimates there are currently 600,000 transhumant livestock, including sheep, cows and some goats. There are about 6,000 transhumant herders, 1200 of whom travel on foot. In the past, this was considered to be a dangerous practice, as both the animals and the shepherd could be injured during long walks. Today, however, modern technology, veterinary drugs, and appropriate clothing make transhumance safe and even pleasant.

All this not only has a beneficial effect on the environment through animals but can even promote local production. If many farmers graze animals locally, there will be more meat, wool and milk for consumers, who will not pay for raw materials imported from other countries. The farther away a product comes from, the bigger the ecological footprint - so it’s generally worth buying local products.

Spanish farmers are not happy with this situation as consumers don’t know what they are buying because the labelling of products from transhumance is not regulated. However, it would be worth highlighting where raw materials come from: Compared to the insane emissions caused by industrial livestock, shepherds offer a sustainable alternative, after all, they feed their animals exclusively on natural food, which does not even need to be transported.

The transhumant road network in Spain covers 125,000 kilometres, but in 1993 re-establishing transhumance was considered "totally impossible". Since then, Garzón has founded an organization called Trashumancia y Naturaleza (TyN), which also supports international introduction. The old shepherd’s vision for transhumance extends well beyond the country's borders, thus hoping to help the continent’s sustainability efforts.

The practice, by the way, has remained what it has always been: the shepherd herds his animals, walks a specified route, and then returns home. But what used to be wilderness is now a land lined with highways and private areas, making the terrain more difficult to cross. So, the organization faces a similar problem to that of the European project to reintroduce bison, which is also hindered by the achievements of modern society.

Photos: Getty Images