Adapting extensive livestock farming to climate change in the Pyrenees, new project coordinated by the UAB
A research team coordinated by the Department of Geography, in collaboration with the Research Observatory of the Alt Pirineu Natural Park, will carry out the REPICA project (Rethinking the Pyrenees in the face of Climate Change) over the next two years to promote an agreed model of long-term sustainable extensive livestock farming, adapted to climate change and exportable to other similar mountain areas.
16/02/2024
The socioeconomic changes of recent decades have led to the abandonment of traditional livestock farming activities in the high mountains in places where access is more difficult, while in others they have led to an intensification of livestock pressure that can compromise the conservation status of ecosystems. This situation, together with the impacts of climate change, has created the need to update the management model of extensive livestock farming in the high mountains.
REPICA was therefore created with the aim of rethinking its management to make it more sustainable in the long term while ensuring the maintenance of biodiversity and landscape, improving pasture productivity and increasing the soil's carbon storage capacity, with the consequent effects of climate change mitigation and benefits for public health.
Among other aspects, the project plans to analyse the impacts of climate and the use of fire on livestock societies since prehistoric times in order to develop a model of spatio-temporal evolution of livestock activity according to the climatic and socioeconomic context of each moment; to compile traditional knowledge on the use of fire for the recovery of pastures and other ancestral practices in order to have more tools on how to manage open spaces in the mountains; create indicators to assess the conservation status of these spaces and the capacity of agro-livestock use ecosystems to adapt and contribute to mitigate climate change; and analyse the atmospheric quality of the High Pyrenees taking into account the emissions derived from prescribed fires and burns for pasture recovery, to ensure the quality of human and environmental health.
Coordinated by Anna Badia, researcher at the Department of Geography, and Oriol Grau, coordinator of the Observatory for Research into the Alt Pirineu Natural Park, the project brings together a team of researchers from different disciplines (archaeology, geography, anthropology, biology, geology and environmental health) with a long history of research in high mountain livestock environments; as well as managers of protected natural areas (Parc Natural de l'Alt Pirineu, Parc Nacional d'Aigüestortes i Estany de Sant Maurici, Xarxa Natura 2000 regió alpina, etc.), technicians from the county offices of the Ministry for Climate Action, Food and Rural Agenda, and coordinators of the rural farming sector.
"The interdisciplinary approach offers complementary views and methodologies aimed at a common goal: to reach a consensus on the optimal model of livestock management and long-term sustainable fire use, while ensuring the preservation and conservation status of ecosystems and health," says Anna Badia.
The project, endowed with €350,000, has benefited from a call of the Climate Fund of Catalonia through the Agency for the Management of University and Research Grants (AGAUR), which finances research projects for climate change mitigation and adaptation.