Transhumant livestock systems (TLS) play key roles in social-ecological sustainability and dynamics of rural territories, participating in local, healthy and culturally-appropriate food supply chains and ecosystem and social functions and processes. In Spain, transhumance is an ancestral livelihood of high cultural and identity value that has survived enormous land-use and socio-economic changes. The objective of this work is to carry out a socio-ecological characterization of TLS in Spain through agroecological lens, including socio-ecological, economic-productive, political-cultural, organisation and governance aspects. We performed 84 interviews with transhumant herders from 8 regions of Spain and adopted a mixed-method analytical approach. A Principal Component Analysis, Hierarchical Cluster Analysis, Content Analysis and a Gaps and Matches of TLS with agroecological principles from the HLPE (CFS, FAO) analysis were carried out. Spanish transhumants are heterogeneous, though they have a common cultural and practices root and have been influenced by similar political, economic and ecological stresses and conditions. Transhumance practice still relies on family labour and trusting relations with other herders, being generational relief increasingly a challenge. PCA and HCA identified three types of transhumant herders that match with three groups of transhumants from Conquense and Segoviana drove roads and Santiago-Pontones. Agrarian intensification policies, market dynamics, environmental changes and regulatory issues constrain transhumants practices and base resources and distance them from agroecological values. However, their bonds, common land-tenure schemes, heritage and resource-use-efficiency rationality, gives them resilience and, together with agroecologically-consonant marketing schemes, can enable them to reconnect with local markets to have better economic expectations.

Trabajo presentado en el X Congreso Internacional de Agroecología, celebrado en Viseu (Portugal) del 02 al 06 de septiembre de 2024.

Peer reviewed