Extensive livestock farming in Pallars Sobirà represents a traditional activity rooted in the territory, based on a use that is closely adapted to its characteristics. This traditional activity accumulates a body of dynamic and hybrid ecological knowledge. Through 12 in-depth interviews with key informants representing different areas, ages, sexes and types of exploitation, the livestock and ecological knowledge is collected in a case study in teh Pyrenees (Pallars Sobirà). The knowledge along the agrifood system, from production, resources, transformation and cooking, show different dimension. It’s first of all, a territorialized knowledge of resources and its management, based on a climatic and edafic zoning and calendars of movement of animals, that looks to maximize the local resources and it includes specific knowledge on species, biophysical characteristics and strategies of management and return of nutrients. Additionally, it is composed of knowledge about technologies and tools that have gradually been incorporated into livestock management and have served to maintain productivity, in a context of demographic crisis and economic and social devaluation of livestock. But beyond that, the traditional knowledge thas a productive and relational dimension that it’s witness to a series of socio-environmental changes. At the same time, these changes have operated on the body of knowledge itself, and it has continued evolved, incorporating new practices and knowledge and also thorugh an hybridization between local knowledge and external knowledge.
The report with preliminary results may be found here: Report TEK-Pallars
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