Logroño, (EFE).- The Rioja town of Brieva de Cameros has once again complied with the tradition of vindicating traditional livestock farming and transhumance with a festival that is now over two decades old and that this weekend has attracted thousands of visitors.
Transhumance was a traditional activity in the La Rioja mountains, whose herds left at the beginning of winter, especially to Extremadura, to return months later when the low temperatures had passed and the pastures were already optimal.
“It is a true model of sustainable development,” one of the organizers of this festival, Pablo Fontecha, has stressed to EFE, through the Brita Association, who has stressed that “it was not only a tradition, but we talked about keeping alive many areas of the mountains and also promote environmental improvement, because the herds clean the mountains through which they pass”.
He has admitted that this festival, today, “is a tribute to the transhumant shepherds of a long time ago, because now there are none” but “it is also about keeping the tradition alive and working to recover it in time.”
To meet these objectives, this weekend first the attendees “received” the flock of Brieva sheep, of about a thousand heads, with a representation of how the animals that came from traveling hundreds of kilometers along roads and ravines arrived until a few decades ago. .
That same flock has represented its march this Sunday, in the most traditional style, as it was done in this La Rioja mountain range for centuries.
school of shepherds
“On the one hand, we want to vindicate traditional livestock, which has been done in these towns and many others throughout history and we do not want it to be lost,” Fontecha stressed, aware that this mountain range had tens of thousands of heads of cattle and now, in the case of sheep, only this herd remains in Brieva, which is communally owned.
This municipality promoted a unique project three years ago, the School of Shepherds, which has not stopped growing since then and holds courses throughout the year on the use of drones for grazing, soil quality, shearing or the management of herds, he explained.
“We have managed to get some twenty students from all over Spain to these courses every year and even a teacher has stayed to live in Brieva and also an Argentine shepherd, who takes care of the sheep all year round,” the member explained. of the Brita association.
The other objective of the festival is to “spread transhumance” that “stopped at the end of the last century” when the herds from La Rioja stopped traveling to the pastures of Ciudad Real and Extremadura, mainly.
“We have the village herd, which is used for school practices, and the goal is that in two or three years, when more people are trained, to be able to do a real transhumance with it, because it is something beneficial for the cattle and for the environment”, he stressed, “although it is expensive”, he concluded.