The director of the Biodiversity Foundation, a public foundation of the Government of Spain, under the Ministry of the Environment, Rural and Marine Affairs, Ana Leiva, attended today in Madrid the XV Transhumance Festival. During this day, the participating shepherds, together with a representation of Madrid’s native livestock, have made a tour from the Casa de Campo through the main streets and squares of the center of the capital.

The Biodiversity Foundation has participated on other occasions in different activities related to transhumance. Thus, last year he collaborated with the Transhumance and Nature Foundation in the organization of the “I World Congress of Nomadic and Transhumant Shepherds”, which was held in La Granja (Segovia) from September 8 to 18, 2007. This event became a forum for the exchange of experiences and the discussion of solutions among nomadic and transhumant herders from all over the world.

The result of this congress was the “Declaration of Segovia”, in which nomadic pastoralists expressed their problems and their demand for solutions. This text, which was approved by delegates of nomadic and transhumant pastoralist peoples from 24 countries, is the third agreement adopted by nomadic pastoralist peoples in their 10,000 years of existence. The statement denounced policies that dispossess nomads of their resources and make it impossible for them to continue their ways of life.

At the IUCN World Conservation Congress, held in Barcelona from 5 to 14 October 2008, the IUCN Assembly of Members endorsed the Segovia Declaration. In this way, governments and environmental organizations recognized the fundamental role of nomadic nomads in the conservation of biodiversity.

On the other hand, the Biodiversity Foundation has collaborated in other initiatives related to transhumance. Thus, he has participated in several projects linked to the promotion of extensive livestock farming. Together with the Association of Entrepreneurs and Professionals for Rural and Technological Development of Andalusia, it participated in 2006, in a project for the elaboration and dissemination of the code of good environmental practices in the agricultural and livestock sector aimed at the reduction and elimination of erosive processes in crops and livestock farms in the southern countryside of Cordoba.

It has also collaborated with the Foundation for the Conservation of the Bearded Vulture, in a programme to monitor biodiversity in Cantabrian mountain areas of the Natura 2000 Network through the application of GIS: analysis of the contribution of extensive livestock farming to biodiversity.

In collaboration with the Regional Government of Extremadura and the City Council of Malpartida de Cáceres, the Biodiversity Foundation has contributed to the launch of the National Center for Livestock Trails, based in this municipality, whose works have been completed and which will be inaugurated soon. They include a Transhumance museum and a Documentation Centre that will make it possible to carry out studies on this ancestral way of optimising the sustainable use of natural resources.

In addition, in collaboration with the Autonomous Community of Navarre, a support programme has been implemented for farmers who use the Roncal valley ravine, in the Navarrese Pyrenees.

Another of the initiatives of the Biodiversity Foundation within the framework of the Empleaverde Program has been to approve two projects aimed at pastoralists. In Extremadura, emphasis is placed on the need to promote and dignify the profession of shepherd, improving and modernising employment. In the Basque Country, the incorporation of good livestock practices in pastoral systems will conserve and improve biological diversity, the landscape and natural habitats. With these two projects, more than 1,000 workers in rural areas will be trained.