Firefighters in Spain and France can’t find enough planes to deliver water to the places where they are fighting, but avoiding future fires depends on finding enough goats, writes Politico.
The idea of using herbivores to create vegetation-free zones in the landscape and thus limit fires is gaining more and more attention as a serious solution, and was officially supported by the European Commission this year. Researchers have shown that the herds play a major role in limiting the spread of fires in the regions of Extremadura, Andalusia and Valencia in Spain, where they have eaten brushwood.
However, while the solution is not technically difficult, it is not cheap, as shepherds often depend on government grants. Fire control experts have said that another obstacle is politicians who emphasize extinguishing existing fires rather than investing in preventing them. Jordi Vendrell, head of the Spanish non-profit Pau Costa Foundation, said that just as funding is given to firefighters, the work of shepherds should also be recognised.
As the flames threaten Bordeaux, farmers are helping firefighters by filling their tanks with water to help in some small way. The lack of farmers is also part of the problem. Unused farmland is rapidly becoming overgrown with scrub, which either dries up or is replaced by mono-species forests that are highly vulnerable to fire. The European Union’s Copernicus Earth observation programme confirmed that the largest forest fires in Europe are now occurring in areas where forests and scrub form large, continuous areas.
While goats have plenty of natural pasture, shepherds are not being offered many incentives.
José María Castilla, a spokesman for the Spanish agricultural lobby ASAJA, said that getting young people to take up pastoralism is almost impossible if there is no opportunity to earn a living. He stressed that the solution is to create a special fund, organized on a similar principle to the post-pandemic recovery funds. Castilla added that there is talk of special support for farmers near the Russian border, who are on the first line of defense, but the same should be said for farmers trying to take care of fire-resistant plots.
The Catalan project “Fire Flocks” is considered a successful example of combining commercial farming with fire prevention. Goat and sheep herders, who also receive support from the EU, take their flocks to graze in areas designated by local firefighters. Local shops sell cheese and yogurt with a special label to inform buyers of the noble cause. In different regions of Spain, different animals are used to graze fire-safe areas – goats, sheep and even horses.
The subsidies are not needed to support an untested idea, but rather to revive a forgotten way of life. Vendrell said that forests and rural areas were previously managed as part of an economic activity that is simply not profitable today, so they have been neglected.
The EC has decided that grazing is one way in which farm animals can help fight climate change
instead of being the cause of it. In March, when discussing forest fire prevention, the EC pointed to grazing as one of the solutions and spoke of supporting a new European livestock strategy. But supporters of the idea have complained that there has been no real action from Brussels.
Last year, a group of experts from the European Academies’ Science Advisory Council criticized the EU for focusing on firefighting and emergency response rather than looking for systemic solutions to create a fire-safe landscape. The scientists published recommendations for forest fire prevention, which included a proposal to use livestock to graze fire-safe areas.
In Madrid, which has also been hit hard by fires, the local government is considering grazing as a possible solution. Earlier this year, the government announced that farmers in the region would graze their livestock on about 3,700 hectares of forest, at a cost of about 800,000 euros. However, about 27,000 hectares have already burned in the region.
Wildfire researcher Joe McNorton supports grazing initiatives. However, in extreme situations, this may not be enough. In particularly adverse conditions, the wind can carry burning embers far ahead of the main fire front, even crossing gaps in the vegetation. Urbano Fra Paleo, a representative of the University of Extremadura, said that grazing cannot be the only solution, but there is no substitute for it either. Without grazing, low vegetation will grow back and the fire risk will remain.
Read also: Wildfire-filled summer prompts Spain to think about better forest management