Toggle Main Menu Toggle Search

Open Access padlockePrints

Sustainable Transhumance Practices in European Landscapes. A Comparative Study

Lookup NU author(s): Dr Oscar Aldred, Dr Francesco CarrerORCiD

Downloads

Full text for this publication is not currently held within this repository. Alternative links are provided below where available.


Abstract

© The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature 2024. Transhumance practices are a clear diachronic example of sustainable use of pastureland, taking advantage of climatic and environmental differences between summer and winter. Past uses of pastureland incorporated a more balanced use of natural resources, making it possible for local communities to exploit areas that would not otherwise have been used for agricultural purposes. In contrast, industrialisation, globalisation, and the collapse of the rural economy in the twentieth century led to a profound transformation of these traditional pastoral practices. We present an overview of transhumance from Northern Iceland, Scotland, England, the Italian Alps, and Eastern Spain. The implementation of seasonal schedules for use of pastures not only avoided overgrazing but assisted settling disputes between different social groups with access to the pastures. We examine archaeological and ethnoarchaeological evidence and compare five case studies.


Publication metadata

Author(s): Vidal-Gonzalez P, Aldred O, Carrer F, Helgason G, Juliusson AD

Publication type: Article

Publication status: Published

Journal: Human Ecology

Year: 2024

Pages: ePub ahead of Print

Online publication date: 28/09/2024

Acceptance date: 20/09/2024

ISSN (print): 0300-7839

ISSN (electronic): 1572-9915

Publisher: Springer Nature

URL: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10745-024-00542-0

DOI: 10.1007/s10745-024-00542-0


Altmetrics

Altmetrics provided by Altmetric


Funding

Funder referenceFunder name
7th EU Framework Marie Curie Intra-European Fellowship (FP7-PEOPLE-2012-IEF)
Icelandic Research Fund, grant no 228883

Share