A few weeks ago a flock of a two thousand sheep passed through the centre of Madrid. TV news bulletins around the world covered  scenes of stopped traffic and bemused onlookers. I believe you have something to do with this. What were those sheep doing there?

Those sheep were travelling along the old cañadas, cattle passageways, which are the original migratory routes for the Iberian wild fauna. For the past 4 or 5 million years herbivores have migrated along these routes at the onset of the hot summer towards the mountains in the north and have returned before winter towards the valleys in the south. Some eight thousand years ago, in the Neolithic, the shepherds who domesticated the wild game species maintained the movements of the large herds. These movements generated a huge network of tracks which are really meadows thousands of miles long. We have about 125,000 kilometres of these extended meadows, the cañadas, which link up all the regions of Spain, from Andalucía to the mountains of León, Soria or Teruel, and which have an extraordinary environmental value. The sheep we saw the other day in Madrid were returning from the mountains in the north.

Other than bringing attention to your campaign for the revival of transhumance, is there any historic significance in having sheep walk through Madrid?

Of course. The first human settlements and villages sprung up along these cattle-ways. Shepherds were really the first traders and they dealt in meat, milk, skins, wool and craftwork, establishing fairs and markets. The main streets of most cities in Spain originated as markets along the routes of migrating, or transhumant, cattle. Madrid is a good example.

Does transhumance have any value nowadays or is it solely a relic of our recent history?

Transhumance is vital in Spain for a very evident reason: We have two very different climate zones, the dry hot Mediterranean region and the fresh wet climate of the mountains, specially in the Atlantic region. The complementary grazing material found in the lowlands during the winter and in the mountains in the summer makes transhumance the only efficient method of using these natural resources whilst conserving our ecosystems. Bear in mind that the Iberian landscape has adapted over millions of years to these migrations. The wild herbivores, originally elephants, rhinos, mammoths, bisons, elks, reindeer and a host of other now extinct species, together with survivors unique to Spain such as the Spanish horse, the fighting bull, the goat and the sheep - imported in the Neolithic from Asia Minor-, all travelled down these routes. Transhumance is crucial, therefore, for the survival of these ecosystems.

The loss of transhumance during the last century due to transportation by train has brought about forest fires and loss of regeneration of our native trees. You can see around us this beautiful dehesa landscape, the park-like oak forest typical of this part of Spain, but, if you look carefully, you will note that these oaks are all over one hundred years old. As transhumance disappears the young oak saplings are devoured by the cattle during the summer months.  If the cattle are forced to remain in the same place over the summer they create immense pressure on the land due to trampling and excessive grazing - there are well documented local bird extinctions this century, such as the Andalusian hemipode or the Demoiselle crane, brought about by this cause. Transhumance must therefore be maintained not only for historical and cultural reasons, but also for the sake of the environment and of sustainable production.

So, there is a link between nature conservation and transhumance?

Absolutely. Over three million hectares of protected areas  in the southwest of the Iberian peninsula have no long term future if transhumance is not re-established. The same is true for the north of Spain. The decrease of free range of cattle in the north has brought about fires, loss of resources and the extinction of species, for example the Grey partridge and the capercaillie.

There is actually a relationship between the loss of wild animals and plants and the decline of migrating cattle?

Sure - although the relationship is not always obvious. It all starts with the micro organisms in the soil. The lack of dung and of mechanical trampling by the hooves of herbivores make the most basic topsoil producing mechanisms disappear, so organic matter does not return to the ground. Remember that the leaves of most Spanish trees and shrubs are hard and leathery. This type of leaf is adapted to endure both the cold winters and the hot, dry summers. If those fallen leaves are not trampled down, they are carried away by rainwater towards the valleys, clogging up springs and streams and causing the death of fish, frogs and newts due to an excess of nutrients.

At another level herbivores collect plant seeds in their wool and in their hooves which they transport for hundreds of miles, thus enabling genetic diversity. Lack of genetic diversity endangers the rich mix of flowers in our meadows - we have up to forty species of flowering grasses per square metre, one of the highest densities in the world.  There is a knock-on effect for insects, such as butterflies, beetles, ants or bumblebees which feed upon these flowers. If you add to this the adverse effect of summer overgrazing you begin to see how this primary production affects insect life and the animals which prey on them. Thus we get a decline of lizards and snakes - once very common in Spain. The chain of events continues. If these prey species disappear, the birds that feed on them also decrease: Red kites, Booted eagles or Short toed eagles. The animals which live in the long grass, such as rabbits, hares, quail or partridges, are also affected as their cover diminishes. Ultimately the highest members of the food chain, such as Spanish lynx, Imperial eagles, vultures, wolves or bears, are all affected by the disappearance of transhumance.

It is commonly thought that nature is best left to itself and that human intervention necessarily brings about a decline in natural diversity. Do you disagree?

Yes, this is totally false. Man is part of nature. Man of Atapuerca, for example, was already interacting with the local environment eight hundred thousand years ago. The effect of man on these ecosystems has shaped the evolution of wildlife which is well adapted to his presence, at least were traditional intervention is concerned. If you abandon a piece of land and allow it to grow truly "wild", biodiversity diminishes. This is something quite evident. In these meadows there are, as I said earlier, some 40 grass species per square metre. If grazing is abandoned the larger, more robust grasses are favoured, stifling the rest. Eventually plants like rosemary and lavender will take over, to be displaced later by broom and other shrubs and trees.  As you can see the landscape becomes increasingly less diverse.

Is it true that even the critically endangered Spanish lynx is affected by the decline in transhumance?

Of course!  Think about it... What is the basic food for the Spanish lynx? Rabbits. How does it hunt them? By sight - it has to spot them first, then stalk them and then catch them by pouncing. This is not possible unless you have open clearings. What do rabbits eat? Grass. In an area abandoned by agriculture and livestock everything eventually turns to dense shrub with branches three to five metres high, well out of the reach of rabbits. This evergreen vegetation, typical of Spain, effectively blocks out sunlight throughout the year and prevents the growth of grass. So, where do rabbits find food? In the meadows or on the edge of cultivated fields. If the meadows disappear, so do the rabbits. Additionally rabbits have the problem of finding the right areas for making their burrows. For the most part Spain is covered in hard quartz,  granite or slate based soils where rabbits have a difficult time burrowing. Usually they seek out softer ground in smallholdings with olive groves or vegetable gardens which are, in turn, dependent on the presence of cattle. In the mountain areas of Spain where you find these smallholdings, people use agriculture to complement their basic produce which comes from their goats, sheep or cows. So, we see how the diversity created by man enables the survival of rabbits or partridges which the lynx preys upon. If man is forced to become sedentary he has to give up his original lifestyle: He cannot afford the extra costs of feeding cattle throughout the year on resources which are only seasonally available.

Can you give an example of an area where the Spanish lynx has disappeared for these reasons?

There are vast expanses of Sierra Morena, Montes de Toledo and Sistema Central which have been allowed to go "back to nature" in the last twenty or thirty years to favour fenced-in hunting preserves for deer and wild boar. These used to be inhabited by goat herders and transhumant cattle and they supported high densities of Spanish lynx, with populations of several thousands. Now, the lynx population has collapsed. Apparently the sierras are wilder than ever, full of masses of Holm and Cork oak and with huge thickets of strawberry trees and impenetrable swathes of cistus and heather. But the rabbits and partridges are all gone, and the lynx has followed. There are emblematic national parks like Cabañeros, in the heart of prime lynx country in the Montes de Toledo, where there hasn't been a single lynx sighting in ten years. The only way to bring back the mosaic of diverse habitats which favours animals like the Spanish lynx is to reintroduce traditional cattle moving practices.

You mean, Spain is actually becoming less wild as people move out of the picture?

That's right. We shouldn't really try to reinvent things in the twenty first century. Up to a 100 or 50 years ago there was an incredible natural diversity in the Iberian peninsula which is well documented. Chapman and Buck  described a country steeped in a greater wilderness than was known anywhere else in Europe. But of course this wilderness included man. If you leaf through the illustrations in their books, people are in evidence everywhere: Goat herds, smallholdings etc. It was precisely in those areas associated with man where you found healthy populations of Imperial eagle, Black vulture, Spanish lynx, Great bustards, and, of course, cranes.

Do cranes use the cañadas also?

If you take a look at this cañada where we stand now you are looking down the natural migratory route for wintering cranes to and from Extremadura - there was a big flock feeding in front of the sheep only yesterday. The cranes which fly between Extremadura and Portugal and Gallocanta, travel along this very line, which joins up the wintering grounds in La Serena - with up to fifty thousand cranes - with the Navalcán and Rosarito reservoirs and also with the Pardo reserve, north of Madrid. From there, cranes move onto Gallocanta and fly up to the Pyrenees following the route of another cañada which passes through Zaragoza.

What is the current state of transhumance in Spain right now? Is anyone promoting it aside from your organization?

There are roughly one million transhumant heads of cattle in Spain today, which represent about three per cent of the total. It has to be said, though, that most of this transhumance is short distance, with herds travelling no more than about a week or so along a distance of fifty to one hundred kilometres between valleys and nearby mountains. Long distance transhumance disappeared completely about half a century ago.  Then, in 1993, we started to bring it back again via our organisation, “Trashumancia y Naturaleza”. We wanted to prove that it was still viable. Nobody believed it was still possible to leave Badajoz, in Extremadura, with three thousand sheep and arrive in León or Soria, in northern Spain, without any problem. We have demonstrated that it is possible and also that it is important from a social, economic and environmental point of view. What remains is public financing via the environmental and agricultural aid programmes to allow the revitalisation of the great network of cattle pathways in Spain. This cañada which we are standing on looks very attractive but it is severely lacking, for example, in watering holes. Water is crucial both for the cattle and for the local and migrating fauna. All we ask is for a reinstatement of something which was in existence only a few decades ago.

You have pointed out that the transhumant cattle routes go through some of Spain’s most interesting natural areas. Can they be used by walkers or  other wildlife enthusiasts?

Of course. Non-traditional uses which are compatible with the conservation of the cañadas are actually covered by a law which came out in 1995 and which specifically allows complementary activities such as walking, cycling and horse riding.  The same law forbids intrusive uses, such as motor vehicles not associated to agricultural uses or transhumance.

Many people see the reinstatement of transhumance as a romantic but impractical notion. Some would contend that you can keep the old cattle routes by turning them over to new uses, such as ecotourism. Do you agree?

Without transhumance the cattle routes will disappear. Remember that cañadas are not tracks, they are elongated meadows up to seventy five metres wide. Their survival depends on grazing and fertilising with cattle dung. These meadows have no use for groups of cyclists or walkers with backpacks and cameras if they don’t graze and provide dung as they travel!

The cañadas are meadows thousands of miles long which join up all the different ecosystems they cross. Herbivores provide transport for plants along these routes but, as we have seen, animals, such as cranes, lynx or wolves, also need to travel along them. Some of our great nature reserves, such as Picos de Europa, Cabañeros or Doñana have no future if they are isolated. They will become smaller and smaller, and more and more degraded. Visitor numbers will increase and they will inevitably become islands with a dwindling genetic diversity. Lynx and Imperial eagles, for instance, are actually becoming extinct in Doñana for these very reasons. The solution, of course, are the old cañadas which linked Doñana with the Sierra de Huelva and then with the lowlands of La Serena, which in turn join up with the Gredos mountains and with the agricultural steppes of northern Castille such as Villafáfila and then Somiedo or Sanabria in the northwest. Interestingly, these greenways are precisely what the European Union is proposing with the Natura 2000 network programme, which envisages natural corridors joining Finland with Gibraltar. Other countries will have to spend huge amounts of money to create these corridors but we already have them! All we have to do is restore them and conserve them.

Would the restoration of the old cattle routes be an expensive exercise?

Not really. Most of the adverse effects on the transhumant cattle routes have been caused by private individuals who have built upon them or fenced them off to annex them to their estates. These individuals should be fined - they have stolen something which doesn't belong to them - and the money can then be used to restore the old routes or, better still, to buy land in the area which may be even more suitable for the purpose. There is little point in knocking a building down and having the cattle crossing over a pile of rubble. We need to be creative and practical.

What about cañadas which cross through towns, for example Madrid?

The simplest solution is to create suburban parks which double up as transhumant cattle routes. Vast investments are being made right now in Madrid for suburban parks. Why not turn them into "green ring-roads" which can easily double up as public parks? To give you an example, we spent three days in the Casa de Campo park, just outside Madrid on our way down here a few weeks ago. The effect of our sheep was entirely beneficial - they not only provided manure but also cropped the long grass which would otherwise become a fire hazard in the summer. I recall the recent news on TV about Prince Charles opening a great new greenway in London for walkers and for locals to exercise their dogs on. If they can do it so that people can walk their dogs surely it is even more crucial in this country where, not only is an important social service being provided, but, without extra investment, the great north-south cattle routes are kept open. Think also, what a bonus it would be if the inhabitants of great cities, like Madrid, could take the tube to the outskirts and step out onto a vast meadow along which they could walk, horse-ride or cycle right up into the mountains without seeing a single car.

So, would you say transhumance is economically viable on its own or is it up to society as a whole to keep it alive?

Profitability is a very relative term. Intensive cattle production in Europe is dependent on the importation of cheap fodder from third world countries, for example soybean flower from the Brazilian rainforest, cereal from Egypt or fish meal from Peru’s depleted seas. We live in a society which is destroying the planet. The only way in which food production in advanced societies such as ours can become economically and environmentally viable is to return to solutions which are not costly in terms of energy, i.e. transport. Further we should  not be importing valuable resources from the third world to feed our cattle. These countries could well use these resources to feed themselves without destroying their own environment. An additional problem derived from our intensive cattle management practices is the poor quality of end products, as mad cow disease and the discovery of dioxins in pigs and poultry has recently proved. The apparent profitability, therefore, of intensive cattle management in Europe is a dangerous fallacy.

Transhumance is proposed as a great alternative for the production of quality meat and milk, which is not dependent on importation of cattle feed. It has low energy costs  - transhumant cattle walks at a gentle 2 km/hour-  and, because the cattle spreads fertility along its path, we avoid the organic pollution caused by static herds. Transhumance contributes to the conservation of nature, culture and traditions and gives us excellent products such as prime meat and cheese, skins or the famous merino wool. And all this without applying pressure on third world countries.

Is it true that developing countries with nomad traditions have shown interest in the resurgence of transhumance in Spain?

I believe we have an important role to play in helping other countries keep their cattle migrating traditions alive. The recent annual passage of our flock of sheep through Madrid has caused great international publicity for our cause. This in turn has made the nomad peoples of countries like  Kenya, Tanzania, Nepal, Bhutan, India and Mongolia start to follow our activities very closely. Last year we hosted an international congress for nomad and transhumant shepherds, a community of over fifty million people worldwide. We have managed to get the Ministry of Environment to translate our laws, which go back to the twelfth century, into French and English so that other countries can apply them. Spain, incidentally, is the only country with an active legislation which protects transhumance. Preserving traditional cattle migration into the twenty first century gives us, as a European Union country, a unique opportunity to set an example to the world of environmental and cultural sensitivity.

How can a visitor find out where the old Spanish cattle routes are? Are they marked on maps? Where is it still possible to see transhumance in action?

You can find the routes on the 1:50000 maps issued by the Instituto Cartográfico Nacional – they are available in most good bookshops in Spain. These maps, specially the older editions, all show the cañadas. It is not easy these days to coincide with actual herds moving along them, although if you make your visit during the months of June or October, when cattle are moving up or down from the mountains, this improves your chances. The best thing if you want to see transhumance is to get in touch with the cattle owners to find out when they will start travelling. Tact and common sense should of course prevail if you wish to travel with transhumant cattle. Don't take a dog, be self-sufficient, and treat the cattle with due respect. Some cattle can actually be quite dangerous, for instance the fighting bulls and cows which still move between Jaen and Teruel. Most problems are easily avoidable by talking to the shepherds, seeking their permission to accompany them, and asking for behaviour guidelines.

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