Our paper titled “Mobile Pastoralism and Protected Areas: Conflict, Collaboration and Connectivity” has just been published in PARKS: The International Journal of Protected Areas and Conservation
In this paper, submitted jointly with DiversEarth & Asociación Trashumancia y Naturaleza, we considered the many benefits of mobile pastoralism for nature conservation, in particular those related to connectivity between protected areas and wider landscapes ensured by the movement of livestock, based on scientific evidences. This include our case study on the correlation of the new vectoral mapping data of Spanish drove roads that we produced, with protected areas and other areas of high biodiversity. Doing so we aimed to raise some serious questions for reflection by the protected area community considering the lack of proper collaboration between conservationists and mobile pastoralists in the majority of formal protected area systems.
Accordingly, paper addresses the opportunities for collaboration including new conservation approaches such as Other Effective Area-Based Conservation Measures (OECMs) and Areas of Connectivity Conservation (ACCs) and suggests a set of recommendations towards ensuring the needed shift from conflict to collaboration.
You can read the paper here