Transhumance route in Soria
The cattle trails are those paths by which I used to make transhumance cattle. Some routes they did, some crossing the Iberian Peninsula from north to south, in order to look for a better climate and more food possibilities. Thus, in summer they moved north where temperatures are colder and there is more grass and, in summer, the opposite route, but with the same ends.
Some paths that had their greatest importance in the 13th century, when Alfonso X El Sabio ruled. At that time the livestock movement was very important in the peninsula, especially for the wool market, which caused these routes to spread throughout Spain to such an extent that today They occupy almost 1% of the national territory. That is to say, an authentic historical and environmental richness.
'Redileo de geometries', photo taken in Jerez de la Frontera.
THE ORIGIN
But how do these paths arise? Violeta Hevia, a technician from the Autonomous University of Madrid who coordinates the Life Cañadas project by Seo Birdlife, She points out that the cattle trails arose from "the imitation of the routes that wild herbivores traditionally made". Yet another example that shows that human beings have spent years noticing and replicating the workings of nature.
“There are several studies that reveal that when we were still hunter-gatherers, we followed the herbivores that we hunted and these they made migratory routes with which they tried to optimize resources. Thus, in the hottest seasons, the animals stayed in higher areas and in winter, when this environment became more hostile, ** they went to warmer areas ** ”, she maintains.
Thus, at the time that animals such as goats or sheep were domesticated, ranchers began to imitate those same paths, which reached such notoriety that they had to be regulated. Nail routes that went into decline a few centuries later with the arrival of industrialization and the decline of the livestock sector. “It was no longer so worthwhile to walk and those who remained they began to be made by train or truck ”, points out the expert.
The Cañada Real Soriana Oriental is the longest in the Iberian Peninsula.
FROM NORTH TO SOUTH, FROM EAST TO WEST
Much of the Peninsula is crossed by these roads. If you are a person who frequents the countryside, surely you have used one to transport yourself without knowing it, since these paths have a length of 125,000 kilometers. In addition, and according to Federico García, responsible for the social area of Seo Birdlife, they are paths that didn't make much sense.
“They are not radio and they had a northwest-southwest orientation. I like to compare them with highways: just as there are some that are more important and others that are secondary, it also happens with cattle trails ”, He maintains.
The longest and best known are the royal canyons. Violeta Hevia says that in Spain there are a total of ten and that they are the ones that connect quite distant areas from north to south and that have a width of 75 meters of grass. "Legally, another thing is that they are then busy," she clarifies.
Within that ten the longest is Cañada Real Soriana Oriental, which begins in the north of said municipality, more specifically in Yanguas, goes down through the province of Ciudad Real and ends in Seville after a journey of about 800 kilometers. Other famous ones are the Cañada Real Cuenca, that crosses Cuenca, Ciudad Real and Jaén or the Western Royal Leonesa, that begins in León and ends in Badajoz. Behind the ravines, and depending on the width, are the paths, the cordeles and the coladas. **
Migrant cattle on a road near Ronda.
AN AUTHENTIC RESERVOIR OF BIODIVERSITY
The cattle trails are containers of a wealth that little by little is being lost and that from Life Cañadas they are trying to preserve. And it is that, beyond its historical value and that they are protected by a law of the year 95, These routes are a true reservoir of biodiversity.
“As of today, much of it is in poor condition, either because they have been invaded by other uses or because they are poorly preserved. The problem is that This conservation depends largely on the passage of cattle, who is the one who eats the grass, who fertilizes, who disperses the seeds…”, clarifies the expert. From there the need to continue to maintain and protect them.
A protection that should be carried out based on the legal framework of the year 95, which she calls public good spaces, so they cannot be occupied, deleted or usurped. For this reason, for Violeta Hevia this legal framework “is an opportunity to protect what can be understood as ecological corridors. In Spain there is a lot of intensified surface of agricultural areas. A livestock route that maintains its livestock use, which has been seen in many investigations, is that greatly increases the reservoir of biodiversity, since it allows the connection between remote populations and between protected spaces that otherwise would have no other form of connection”.
The organization launched the Life Cañadas project a few years ago, with which they seek to give it activity again. Thus, Federico García says that The first process to recover them is on a physical level, “so that the roads continue to be maintained”. After this, the idea is that they can continue to be used as ecological corridors. "To do this, work is being done such as decompacting the land on both sides of the road so that native vegetation is regenerated; cleaning, since they are often used as dumps; and of awareness towards the population ”, he summarizes.
Transhumance festival of 2017 in Madrid
Some acts that have combined with the support to transhumance, which has been recovered in some ways as a pilot project, although his idea is to repeat it more times. Even so, there are many royal ravines through which the cattle still pass twice a year, so, if you want to get closer, you are always welcome to do a little of the path with the shepherds and to learn more about all the history that hides behind these cattle trails.