This project was created as a consequence of the municipal commitment of the Town Council of El Boalo-Cerceda-Mataelpino to make extensive livestock activity in our municipality compatible with the environmental protection of habitats and species such as wolves, whose presence has already been strengthened in the Sierra de Guadarrama.
This municipality comprises a territory of almost 40 km2 with a very variable terrain clearly marked by the presence of the mountain. It is ideal for herding goats and sheep, an activity that for centuries contributed to the breeding of the protected native breed Guadarrama Goat or "Guadarrameña", and to the consolidation of more than 60 classified cattle trails and resting places that today form an authentic network of connection between the three villages.
It is therefore not surprising that traditional extensive livestock farming has been the basis of the local economy for decades as part of our memory and historical and cultural legacy. In the 1980s, this model began to regress clearly. Without youth rejuvination, the flocks of sheep and goats from our ravines and cattle routes disappeared, as did transhumance practices and shepherds.
Coexistence of the wolf with extensive cattle breeding
In March 2015 a series of town councils, breeders, conservationists and experts in the study of the Iberian wolf met in Miraflores de la Sierra for a day of work and debate aimed at providing consensual solutions to achieve "A Possible Coexistence between the Iberian Wolf and Extensive Livestock in the Sierra de Guadarrama. A clear priority of the day's conclusions was the establishment by the administration of sufficient compensation for the damage and loss of extensive livestock in the "wolf areas".
However, it remains to be resolved how to compensate for the loss of profits due to the loss of breeding animals and dairy producers, and how to guarantee their replacement, given that in the case of protected native breeds, such as the Goat of the Sierra de Guadarrama, it is impossible to find them afterwards on the market at an affordable price.
The creation of a not-for-profit municipal herd of Goats from the Sierra de Guadarrama would guarantee farmers access to replacement producing specimens at an affordable and regulated price, thus minimising the damage caused by loss of profit on their farms.
The fight against climate change and forest fires
The role played by grazing in the fight against climate change is something that is already recognised by all sectors. In our case we want it to contribute to the reduction of municipal activities' carbon footprints. With regard to fires, there are a large number of fires that occur summer after summer in our municipality and in neighbouring towns, all of them within the Sierra de Guadarrama National Park, and it is precisely the tasks of prevention and not those of extinguishing that are the most effective in the fight against forest fires.
Waste management
Within this project the role of grazing applied to the clearing of meadows of municipal green areas and communities of private owners is essential to reduce the volume and the amount of vegetable waste currently taken to landfill. In addition, the use of goat slurry to improve the compost resulting from the composting process to which all plant pruning falls under will be assessed.
Project’s objectives
Objectives of the project
In short, the objectives of the project can be specified as the:
1.- Reduction and revaluation of bio-waste from the clearing of plots.
2.- Prevention of fires in peripheral urban areas through herd grasing.
3.- Protection of biodiversity: both native breeds of livestock and wild species.
4.- Recovery of traditional uses and trades, such as grazing and livestock.
5.- Environmental education, with the diffusion of all these values to groups of schoolchildren.
The complete project can be viewed here: https://cabrasbcmblog.files.wordpress.com/2016/05/proyecto-rebac3b1o-municipal.pdf
- Familiarising and reflecting
- Regulating
- Kick-starting
- Creating networks
- Local institution
- Network