Over 100 participants in the Halfway Seminar of the project

On 26 November 2018, the Artium Museum in Vitoria-Gasteiz hosted the Halfway Seminar of the project, ‘The role of the shepherd. Tradition and technology for the conservation of mountain pastures’.

During the morning, different aspects were discussed that are related to the changes taking place in the use of mountain pastures for farming and livestock purposes and the conservation problems derived from said use. Comments were also made about the different initiatives that are being developed in Europe to try and reduce the problems and promote the sustainability of mountain livestock farms.

Throughout the afternoon, lectures were given about the most significant progress made in the OREKA MENDIAN Project in relation to the most innovative monitoring tools, with a view to using them for conserving grazing habitats, but also possibly using them to support livestock activities.

The Seminar attracted a high number of people. Nine lecturers and 106 participants with very different interests came from a variety of places (university academic staff, specialists from Basque institutions, agricultural research centres, farming management centres, rural development associations, livestock farmers, NGOs with an interest in mountains, etc.). The LIFE OREKA MENDIAN Project thus complied with its task of coordinating the agents involved in the conservation of mountain pastures, while disseminating the project’s main goals and the results obtained until now.