Apocalypticism seems to have become increasingly fashionable in the last decade. One reason is, that the idea of the End of the World has once again been fed to foster a political movement fuelled by the angry disenfranchised and seemingly oppressed people of the rural heartlands – the farmers, the males, the uneducated, and the other hopeless, fat trash and rabble circulating on the peripheries of the cities and their privileged meritocracies. As many have noted, this is a powder keg skilfully manipulated by modern despots and wannabee dictators like Putin, Orban and Trump. Apocalypses appear among the oppressed and are harnessed by the oppressors.

Unfortunately, disregard for the concerns of ordinary people among the elite tends to be the order of the day, leaving the little people with the choice of opting for either tragedy: passivism or dictatorial prevention. From this point of perspective, freedom and liberation form a phantasmagoria or utopia, while mushroom clouds and flooded landscapes invade our dreamscapes.

Positive Apocalypticism

Most political scientists and meritocrats will claim that the best way forward is to disregard the apocalypses floating around. By continuing to micromanage the system, we shall overcome the resistance and the uproar, they claim.

However, modern politicians who disregard this apocalyptic thinking are in danger of missing out on the point of the profound fright voiced by the people on the periphery. The question is not so much whether apocalypses are floating around and how to dispel them, but rather, which kinds of apocalypses (or concerns) are being floated. This is not the right way forward, argues Joe P. L. Davidson in a new article published in the American Political Science Review.

He claims that studies of various apocalypses – or worldquakes – are important to carry out. Concrete apocalyptic thinking offers valuable insights. He writes: “First, the end of the world is a means of interpreting the historical situation of oppression. It demonstrates the limitations on possibilities within the contours of current society, highlighting the fact that oppression is bound up with the social order in its totality… Secondly, the apocalypse from below functions as a “possibility-disclosing practice” aimed at keeping “the possibility of a different future open, resisting resignation and accommodation to what is”.

He argues that a scrutiny of the apocalypses floated from below – but not those from above – will reveal in what manner the present system oppresses the disenfranchised by identifying the hidden structure of the oppression. Unfortunately, he does not present examples of how this has been done in the past or present. By not supplying such examples, he miscalculates the need to analyse both types of apocalypses – those presented from below and those presented from above. One example may suffice.

The Sixth Extinction

One of the current apocalypses floating around is “The Sixth Extinction”, summarised as the imminent breakdown of our nature caused by the rapidly accelerating extinction of species of flora and fauna. Often claimed to be more threatening than the climate crisis, this particular apocalypse has its own circle of UN CUPs with appended herds of educated masses of NGOs, green politicians and business entrepreneurs vying for the development of the new market opportunities invoked by nature restoration, rewilding and the invocation of sustainable practices.

As with the climate crisis, this has created a widespread uproar among “little people”. Balancing between denial and anger, they lobby for their continued right to harvest and hunt, to uphold their free right of ways, and to inhabit nature with everything from musical festivals to huge sports events. In the bleak future where 30% of the globe is set aside for nature, they imagine being players in a kind of hunger games where only the well-situated, clever, and skilled people will survive – eating their pounder-burgers on the way – while the rest are left behind. As such they instinctively seem to know that there is a fundamental difference between the apocalypses imagined by the oppressed and the oppressors. For the former, they have already happened, while for the latter, they present a potentiality. While the former doom scroll, the latter prep themselves to weather the storm – or, alternatively, colonize Mars.

In this situation, the right wing of “Trumpist” European leaders have formulated a response to the ramifications of this particular apocalypse by voicing their fear for the future lack of food in a world where eight billion will grow to ten within the next 25 years. Currently, in Europe, political right-wing leaders have used the EU Nature Restoration Law to recruit European farmers to rebel in the streets of Brussels. Of course, this recruitment has been staged by the multi-corporal companies currently owning huge tracts of farms in Europe and living well off the subsidies paid out by the EU. As an example, the land in the former DDR Mecklenburg was farmed by cooperatives. After 1989, the workers on these cooperative farms were offered the opportunity to buy the land. Unfortunately, lacking funds, the land was taken over by large Western landowners. Today, 75% of the land is farmed in a highly industrialised fashion with a marginal rent per hectare but not per capital investment. This is a big business which would suffer significantly if the EU cut their CAP (the annual subsidies).

A careful examination of the challenges, however, shows that the future solution to this impending apocalypse – officially floated by the right-wing faction in the EU parliament – has already arrived. By harnessing futuristic tech – from vertical farming to stem cells, the technologies are already there. Yes, it demands a lot of clean energy and as yet a substantial technical innovative effort. Nevertheless, the possibility is there to free up significant tranches of land in Europe – and at the same time secure food for all. For instance, in Denmark, 15% of the land is farmed to produce fodder for cattle delivering milk to the dairy industry. This is more than 3000 times the amount of land needed to set up factories delivering the same amount of milk protein produced by yeast cells.

By literally looking at ONLY the apocalyptic discourse from below – and not how the professional doomsayers join up with the malcontents – we may miss the practical solutions to the fear and anger voiced by the people who seem to imagine the possibilities from a peasant perspective – framing their world as an “image of the limited good”, where the answer becomes one of providing more equity, more balance, and more respect through land-sharing. However, this will – emphatically – not solve the challenge of the impending and very real apocalypse called the Sixth Extinction. Looking at technical solutions, instead, it becomes possible to free up to 15-30% of land for nature restoration and rewilding while at the same time cleaning up the unhealthy system of subsidising a small handful of huge agricultural businesses. Suddenly a viable future of both restored ecosystems and room for other nature pursuits becomes possible.

However, this point of perspective does not surface without looking at the structure of the apocalypses wielded from both above and below. The trick is, as Davidson rightly writes, to unveil or reveal what apocalypses are about. However, we need to study the apocalypses voiced from both above and below to envision real solutions in a post-apocalyptic world. Neither, however, are defensible in their own right. The future calls for practical solutions to surmountable challenges. Not doom scrolling nor prepping.

Karen Schousboe

FEATURED PHOTO:

The Hunger Games is a series of young adult dystopian novels written by American author Suzanne Collins. The first three novels are part of a trilogy following teenage protagonist Katniss Everdeen, and the fourth book is a prequel set 64 years before the original.
The novels in the trilogy are titled The Hunger Games (2008), Catching Fire (2009), and Mockingjay (2010). Each was adapted for film, establishing The Hunger Games film series, with the film adaptation of Mockingjay split into two feature-length motion pictures. The first two books in the series were both New York Times best sellers, and Mockingjay topped all US bestseller lists upon its release. By the time the film adaptation of The Hunger Games was released in 2012, the publisher had reported over 26 million Hunger Games trilogy books in print, including movie tie-in books. © Murray Close

NOTES:

In anthropology, “limited good” is the theory commonly held in traditional societies that there is a limited amount of “good” to go around. In other words, the amount of land, money, etc. available is held to be finite, so every time one person profits, another loses.
Societies that subscribe to this philosophy tend to display strong levels of equality among members and to be strongly resistant to social change. The term was coined by George M. Foster in his 1965 article, Peasant Society and the Image of Limited Good. Foster, George M. (1965) Peasant Society and the Image of Limited Good, American Anthropologist New Series, Vol. 67, No. 2, Apr., pp. 293–315

SOURCE:

The Apocalypse from Below: The Dangerous Idea of the End of the World, the Politics of the Oppressed, and Anti-Anti-Apocalypticism
By Joe P. L. Davidson, University of Warwick, United Kingdom
In: Americal Political Science Review (2024) p. 1 – 13

Abstract

The apocalypse is frequently deployed by political movements, especially contemporary climate activists, to advance their causes. This article develops a framework for defending such invocations of the end of the world. With many other political theorists, I suggest that the apocalypse is a dangerous concept, not least because of its association with authoritarian accounts of history. However, we should not reject the apocalypse. I argue for a form of anti-anti-apocalypticism, using the criticisms directed against the concept as a launchpad to rethink it in viable terms. While acknowledging the value of different ways of defending the apocalypse, I highlight the importance of the causes of apocalyptic movements. Simply put, apocalypses from below are defensible because they have the capacity to clarify the political position of the oppressed and open new political possibilities for the group. By contrast, apocalypses from above, because they fail to fulfill these functions, are not.

The post Doom Scrolling and Apocalypticism appeared first on Wilder Europe.

After WW2, the green revolution paved the way for making Europe self-sufficient regarding food. Helped by the EU, this industrialisation increased global production by introducing high-yielding varieties and streamlined animal production systems. Though highly efficient, the shift also caused widespread deterioration of biodiversity, degrading soils, lowering the groundwater tables, increasing salinisation and deforestation, and introducing a regime of pesticides. Further, widespread rural inequalities lead to migration out of the countryside and, in the last decades, widespread abandonment of marginal lands. The disappearance of traditional knowledge of agricultural systems, such as in the transhumance in the Mediterranean and the bocage systems in France, should be added to this list. Although not all agricultural landscapes today look like Mecklenburg in Northern Germany with its vast agro-industrial landscapes featuring fields up to 100 ha, or the “Zone Agroindustrielle” east of Paris, the devastation of the cultural landscapes has been widespread.

This development has also been the case in Spain. Nevertheless, the Iberian peninsula is still home to five of the EU’s seven internationally recognised “Globally Important Agricultural Heritage Systems”, so-called GIAHS, a system set up by FAO in 2002. The Iberian Peninsula was recently surveyed with the GIAHS model to recognise further agroecosystems worth preserving as intangible heritage. The criteria are food and livelihood security, agro-biodiversity, local and traditional knowledge systems, distinctive cultural values, and specific features of landscapes and seascapes. By developing these criteria and utilising GIS, the Spanish authorities have pinpointed fifty potential sites worth protecting.

Significant are the sites belonging to 56% of the farmland in Spain known as “dehesas” (and in Portugal as “montados”). Half of this typical landscape in the southwestern part of the Iberian Peninsula is found in the northern part of Andalusia in the Sierra de Aracena y Picos de Aroche stretching north of the Guadalquivir from Huelva, Seville, Cordoba, and Baeza. Originally covered by woods hosting gall, cork and holm oaks, this landscape was cleared to make way for the dehesas. As well as grazing livestock, mostly cows and fighting bulls, the dehesas – or defences, originally meaning a reserved pasture – were and are used for the production of cork, firewood, and charcoal, as well as grazing. Some of the villages flanking the dehesas date back to prehistoric times, while others owe their existence to the out-migration of the Muslim population after the Reconquista and the slow Castilian repopulation. Most villages grew up around fortress-like churches or hilltop castles constructed to deter the Portuguese to the west and the Nasrid kingdom at Grenada to the east.

As it stands today, the dehesa-landscape was the immediate result of the Castillian conquest, when the Muslim population gradually migrated from leaving an abandoned landscape where natural ecosystems were allowed to take over. For a short while, much of the the landscape was used for activities such as hunting, fishing, and beekeeping. Only gradually did the exploitation of the landscape characterised by “modern” dehesas – that is, enclosed pasturelands – take over after the final conquest of the Nasrid kingdom and the population growth following the wars and plagues, which marred the 14th and 15th centuries.

Although it is believed the system with dehesas existed in Roman, Byzantine and later Islamic times, the present-day version thus dates to the period of repopulation, which occurred in the later Middle Ages. Their main function was to serve as more or less common, more or less privately owned pastures for drought cattle. One common feature was the active prohibition against pigs and poultry accused of uprooting the ground and fouling the water. However, the dehesas were not just used for drought cattle. Sometimes, dehesas were enclosed and used for regular cattle ranging by larger landowners and the cities located along the Guadalquivir.

Today, these dehesas are recognised by the EU as farmlands with a “High Natural and Cultural Value”, implying these agroforestry systems also score high on biodiversity. Protected as a specific EU habitat, much of the landscape featuring the dehesas is recognised as Natura 2000.

Two Forms of Conservation Policies

However, the question remains how to preserve this unique cultural landscape and/or its nature best? And further: is it worth protecting the dehesa-landscape from a biodiversity perspective?

One system set up by the Spanish authorities is the identification of the belt as a network of Protected Natural Areas, parts of which – as said – have also been designated Natura 2000. However, this system is challenged by the abandonment by people of the traditional sylva–pastoral landscape, with an accompanying shift from pigs to poultry, horses, and olive groves, but also furthering the encroaching scrub and forest.

Another option, though, is inducing forest expansion together with more or less active rewilding, returning to the “Reconquista” landscape with its natural barriers of Mediterranean wild forests used as open nature reserves and hunting grounds. This is, to some degree, the policy adopted by the National Parks spread along the Northern border of Andalusia. Apparently, these parks struggle to integrate the abandoned farmland into their natural range without losing the distinctive fauna and flora characteristic of the dehesas.

These two policies and options have been claimed to represent two adverse methods of conservation where the cultural and natural landscapes are set apart and not allowed to mingle, thus establishing what in the literature has been termed a “cultural severance”.

“The progressive degradation and marginalisation of the rural landscape and the associated deterioration of environmental and social conditions are factors correlated with the increasing land abandonment of smallholder farming over the past decades”, writes Villodre et al. in a recent article (Villodre 2023)”, on behalf of the cultural-landscape-faction. They posit that “among the main arguments against rewilding are the loss of valuable cultural landscapes and high nature value farming systems, the decrease in landscape heterogeneity or the negative impacts on biodiversity and ecosystem Services”. In a project led by the University of Extremadura and carried out together with stakeholders, plans have been laid to enrich the grassland of the dehesas by bettering the regeneration of trees and the sowing of fodder crops.

Opposed to this, the Nature-landscape-faction argues for a type of (passive) rewilding, letting the abandoned details being swallowed by the wilder natural landscape dominating the sierras.

One example of such a more integrated landscape is the UNESCO Global Geopark – the Sierra Norte de Sevilla Natural Park – characterised by rich and diversified nature. This is a landscape of gently rolling hills clad in dense evergreen oaks, which covers 177.000 ha and is very sparsely populated. However, a third of the park is still taken up with dehesas, where pigs continue to graze. Thus, the dehesas borders a rich landscape of wilder nature inhabited by boars, deer, otters, badgers, wolves, polecats, and wild cats, while overflown with eagles, griffons, black vultures, black storks, red kites, and eagle owls. Also, the landscape is teeming with a significant population of endangered butterflies. Thus, in a situation where the wild nature of Europe is endangered, the preservation of large tracts of abandoned dehesas should seem an unnecessary luxury. When all is said and done, a dehesa is an enclosed pasture more or less extensively exploited for grazing and coppice. The upholding of a dehesa, thus, does not depend on the next-door neighbouring dehesas. As opposed to this, wild nature needs large tracts of undisturbed land where animals and plants can roam. Why, then, should we preserve and protect the dehesas?

Arguably, however, the dehesas sustain high levels of biodiversity if kept under an adequate management regime. This is the main conclusion of a meta-survey carried out in 2022 (Rodríguez-Rojo 2022). In general, the dehesas, with their intermediate tree covers, scrub patches, and natural microclimates, offer a varied and beneficial home to a wide variety of species thriving in a mosaic landscape. However, if the management becomes too proactive – for instance, removing dead tree stumps and clearing shrubs, the advantages tend to disappear. “Small-scale features and natural microhabitats such as traditional stone walls, canopy shrubs, piles of pruning debris, or temporary watercourses have been shown to contribute substantially to the biodiversity of macroinvertebrates, reptiles, and small mammals, writes Rodríguez-Rojo et al. (2022)

On a more detailed level, other studies of the dehesas considered as low-input farming agroforestry systems have shown that, taken as a whole, the dehesas do feature significant numbers of species and rich biodiversity. However, systematically measuring flora and fauna on nine general habitat categories inside dehesas from wood pastures to water bodies, it was shown that abundance and species richness varied widely and that the proportion of shared species was low among the different micro-habitats. The most important conclusion was that the high diversity of the dehesas depended on the coexistence within the farms of habitats, which, although marginal, seemed to harbour a disproportionally high number of species compared to the small areas out of the whole which they occupied. This might mean that it is, in fact, not the dehesas as such, but rather the wilder fringes which support their value as natural reserves. (Moreno et al. 2016). In short: heterogeneity seems to be the key to the high biodiversity attached to the dehesas.

Another study has also demonstrated this conclusion carried out in 2020 when a group of scientists published an index on how to evaluate threatened biodiversity (Diaz 2020). Lucky for us, they applied their model to the forests of Andalusia comprising the following habitats: Oak forests, other forests, shrubland, grassland and dehesas. The method employed consisted of selecting threatened species according to the official regional red list and evaluating their status according to a weighted index of differences in threat status, sensitivity to disturbance, and their functional role. The final list included 224 species: 81 plants, 76 birds, 31 mammals, 22 anthropods, six reptiles, five amphibians, and three molluscs. Fine-scale maps covering 43,864 km2 were then plotted with the biodiversity index calculated for each threatened species registered. Based on this, the scientists found that the dehesas averaged a conservation value of only 80-150. Albeit more than the oak forest (40-100) and the other forests (50-110), the best results were found in shrubland and grassland bordering the dehesas and yielding 200-250.

From Passive to Active Rewilding

Pondering the diverse habitats– dehesas, grasslands, shrublands and forests –  it appears they each contribute and have a role to play. However, the quality of biodiversity seems to be attached less to the different habitats and rather the mixture of the different intermingling zones in the sierras – with wilder nature in the inner hills and mountains bordered by semi-open shrub- and grassland, which in their turn is adjoined by the dehesas and the traditional silvopastoral farms on the gently sloping countryside reaching down to the banks of the river and its tributaries. To name one example, the griffon vultures are best served in a semi-open landscape filled with carrion from both wild deer and livestock, while reforestation or monocultures like olive groves hinder their survival in the sierras.

Perhaps, the real solution is to accept that returning to an actively rewilded landscape might solve the problem. What we do know is that the forestry landscape of the sierras in the Southwestern Iberian Peninsula before the neolithic revolution consisted of the fluctuating landscape where wild roaming animals – aurochs, wild horses, boars and numerous top predators such as lions, wolves, bears and lynx roamed the terrain, slowly opening up the woodland to turn it into a semi-open grassland much like the traditional dehesas looked like before they were fenced in, and claimed as private property.

However, advancing active rewilding will involve the traditional Spanish farmers abandoning their role as custodians of the cultural landscape of their dehesas, agroforestry farms, and famed products. On the other hand, though, they may gain a new and less stressful role as custodians of the wild nature currently reclaiming the sierras of Southern Spain.

Unfortunately, as long as agribusinesses and lobbyists support the discourse on cultural landscapes as part of the national heritage, this may not happen, despite the vested interests in nature tourism and the economics of climate adaptation, which should lead the way.

SOURCES:

Prioritising conservation actions towards the sustainability of the dehesa by integrating the demands of society
By Carlos Parra-López, Samir Sayadi, Guillermo Garcia-Garcia, Saker Ben Abdallah, and Carmen Carmona-Torres
In: Agricultural Systems (2023), Vol 206.

Characterization of potential Spanish territories for creating a national network associated with the Globally Important Agricultural Heritage Systems
By Cintya Elizabeth Manrique Anticona, Jos´é Luis Yagüe Blanco, and Isabel Cristina Pascual Castano.
In: Land Use Policy (2023) vol 131.

Origin, Typology and Evolution of the Dehesas in the south of the Iberian Peninsula during the Late Middle Ages (13th to 15th Centuries AD)
By Maria Antonia Carmona Ruiz
In: Landscapes and Resources in the Bronze Age of Southern Spain. RessourcenKulturen(2022) vol 17 (pp. 135-144.

Exploring the causes of high biodiversity of Iberian dehesas: the importance of wood pastures and marginal habitats
By Gerardo Moreno, Guillermo Gonzalez-Bornay, Fernando Pulido, María Lourdes Lopez-Diaz, Manuel Bertomeu, Enrique Juárez & Mario Diaz
In: Agroforestry Systems (2016) vol 90, pp 87-105

Which Factors Favour Biodiversity in Iberian Dehesas?
by Maria Pilar Rodríguez-Rojo, Sonia Roig, Celia López-Carrasco, María Manuela Redondo García, and Daniel Sánchez-Mata
In: Sustainability (2022) Vol 14 no 4

Abandonment and management in Spanish dehesa systems: Effects on soil features and plant species richness and composition
By Reyes Tárrega, Leonor Calvo, Ángela Taboada, Sergio García-Tejero, and Elena Marcos
In: Forest Ecology and Management (2009) 257(2):731-738

The perception of tourism sustainability by stakeholders. The case study of the “Sierra de Aracena y Picos de Aroche” Nature Park, “Sierra Norte de Sevilla” Nature Park and “Sierra de Hornachuelos” Nature Park (Andalusia, Spain)
By María Bahamonde-Rodríguez, F. Javier García-Delgado, and Giedrė Šadeikaitė
In: Land( 2022), vol 11

Land use and land cover dynamics in the dehesa of Sierra Morena Biosphere Reserve (Sierra Norte de Sevilla Natural Park, Spain), 1956-2007
By Juan Manuel Mancilla-Leytón, Antonio Puerto-Marchena and Ángel Martín-Vicente
In: Madera bosques (2017) vol.23 no.2

A comprehensive index for threatened biodiversity valuation
By Mario Díaz, Elena D. Concepción, José L. Oviedo, Alejandro Caparrós, Begoña Á. Farizo, and Pablo Campos
In: Ecological Indicators (2020) Vol 108

Willingness to accept for rewilding farmland in environmentally sensitive areas
By Rubén Granado-Díaz, Anastasio J. Villanueva, and José A. Gómez-Limón
In: Land Use Policy (2022) Vol 116

The post Rewilding or Landscape Conservation in Andalusia? appeared first on Wilder Europe.

The fierce and shy wild cattle living in the park at Chillingham is but one flock of four roaming at Woburn, Dynevor, and Cadzow. Earlier on, such herds were a common feature in the British landscape, probably kept for their ornamental and symbolic value. Known in the 12th century as Tauri Sylvestres, they have apparently always been considered a wild sub-species. The herd at Chillingham, though, was first mentioned in 1645. Today, about 130 animals live in the 150-ha large park in Northumberland. The herd is protected from being earmarked, a true sign of their “wild” status.

These flocks of wild cattle were treated as a kind of super-deer eaten on festive occasions, such as at the Archbishop of York installation feast in 1466. At the celebrations, six wild bulls were roasted and served. It appears the white cattle survived as potent medieval status symbols alongside other wild species. Evidence from Auckland Castle indicates a herd of White Cattle was kept in the 15th-century deer park for ornamental reasons together with wild horses.

From Wales, we know that white cattle were used as a coin to measure fines payable to the Lords of Dynevar. In AD 1210, a Welsh Marcher lord tried to bribe King John with a White bull and four hundred cows.

It is usually supposed that the wild cattle living in the parks are descended from free-living cattle, which is otherwise well documented. Thus  we lear from Fits-Stephens description of London from 1174 (from his biography of Thomas Becket) how there to the North were “tilled fields, pastures, and pleasant, level meadows with streams flowing through them”. Not far off spread “out a vast forest, its copses dense with foliage concealing wild animals – stags, does, boars, and wild bulls.”.

However, from medieval reports we also know that herds of cattle were regularly moved from one deer park to another. In 1277 Edward I specifically ordered wild cows and bulls to be taken to Windsor Forest. Whether or not elaborate hunts were staged at the deer parks remains unknown.

Recent studies of the genetics

One of the distinguishing features of this subspecies of cattle appears to be its white coat. Studies of their DNA have shown that the colour reflects a chromosomal homozygous translocation which also causes testicular hypoplasia. Also present in the white Galloway and the Irish Moiled, it is also found in the Northern Finncattle and the Swedish Mountain breed. It has been suggested that the cattle were initially imported to The British Isles in the maelstrom of the Viking conquests.

Just as two breeds of sheep in Northwest England as well as horses and dogs have been identified as having Scandinavian roots, the scientists reporting on the genetic makeup of the Chillingham herd suggest an affinity. This, however, remains to be confirmed by further studies of the ancient Scandinavian cattle breeds.

How did the herds survive?

The survival of these herds is remarkable as the hypoplasia caused by the genetic makeup has another consequence. Accompanied by a reduced testicular functionality is poor sperm quality, which should have led to the extinction of the white herds centuries ago.

However, studies of the breeding patterns of the herds show that the Chillingham cattle breed all season, competition between the bulls is fierce, and oestrous cows are repeatedly mounted. Thus, in a study between June 1980 and December 1981, the biologists and rangers noted how 15 to 17 mature bulls carried out 71 mountings within a fortnight leading to 22 calves nine months later. Paternity to these calves could not be ascertained. Thus, the animals appear to have found a way to compensate for the genetic deficiency. It should be noted that reproductive performance is a key indicator of the long-term sustainability of any livestock production system, and that testicular hypoplasia is a morphological and functional reproductive disorder that affects bulls around the world, which might lead to aggressive breeding patterns among some semi-feral herds (for instance at Mols Lab in 2022). The incident was later villified by a group of animal activists deploring “the rape of the cows” and led to the deplorable culling of the young bulls punished for their apparently genetically sound pattern of breeding, develop to compensate for this particular genetic challenge.

This insight has significant consequences for the upkeep of this (and other herds) of these rare, semi-feral types of cattle. It would be wrong to believe that artificial fertilisation would be able to save a subspecies like the famous white cattle. Quite the opposite.

SOURCE:

Conservation of rare wild-living cattle Bos taurus (L.): coat colour gene illuminates breed history, and associated reproductive anomalies have not reduced herd fertility
S. J. G. Hall, B. Brenig, R. A. Ashdown, M. R. Curry
First published: 02 September 2021 in Journal of Zoology (2021) Vol 315, issue 4.

Aspects of archaeology, history, landscape, material culture and structures of bishop’s houses in the English dioceses of Carlisle and Durham, and the Scots dioceses of Glasgow and St. Andrews c1450-1660.
By C.E.H. Smith
Thesis, Durham 2020.

Wild White Cattle of Great Britain
By Hellidon John Storer
London 1879

Race, Breed, and Myths of Origin: Chillingham Cattle as Ancient Britons
By Harriet Ritvo
In: Representations (1992), Vol 39 pp 1 – 22

READ ALSO:

VISIT:

It is possible to go on a guided tour of the park during the summer.
Joint Cattle and Castle tickets are available via the Wild Cattle website. Numbers on the Wild Cattle tours are restricted, so it is best if you book on line so as to avoid any possible disappointment. Visit www.chillinghamwildcattle.com for more information.

Also, the 12th-century Castle of Chillingham offers tours during the summer as well as stays in the self-catering aprtments in the Coaching Rooms. Unfortunately, no pets are allowed.

The post Wild Cattle in Britain – Descendants of Viking Cattle? appeared first on Wilder Europe.

In 2050 the world is expected to be carbon neutral. However, this technical effort is insufficient to keep temperatures from overstepping 1.5 °C. We also need to find ways to sequester vast amounts of the carbon emitted in the last 250 years. Hence, the UN also calls for removing an additional 500-1000 Gt of atmospheric CO2 already let loose and storing it on the planet between now and 2100 (equivalent to 7-14 Gt CO2 per year). To put this in perspective, the world’s forests already sequester 7.6 Gt per year. The need and obligation to enhance our current level of sequestration mean that we might have to double up the capacity of our forests.

One way to achieve this goal is by doubling the area of forests, meadows and extensive grasslands as of now! Another is to “animate the carbon cycle” and harvest an additional sequestration of an average of 6.5 Gt C worldwide.

While turning carbon neutral takes time and costs CO2 on the way when building windmill parks or nuclear installations, the beauty of the forest solution is that it might be orchestrated overnight. We just have to stop using considerable tracts to grow feed for animals and instead rewild them. Simply put,  we may just set the action in motion by planting mixed forests, reclaiming the waterways, and letting large herbivores loose.

The Case for EU

In the EU, one opportunity is offered by the widespread agricultural abandonment suffered on marginal lands and a proposed shift towards wildlife ranching. In the EU 2020, 40 % of the total land is actively managed by farmers. To this should be added 15%, which is already either not worked or entirely abandoned. Furthermore, an additional 3 % of the total agricultural land in the EU is projected to be abandoned before 2030, adding 10 to 20 mill ha to this pool. As much of this land is farmed to feed animals, the only consequence will be the need to shift the European diet from north to south towards a more wholesome Mediterranean version (more vegetables and less meat).

Rewilding Mediterranean Rangelands

Much of this abandoned farmland lies in Southern and Eastern Europe (with Spain expected to suffer the most due to climate changes and desertification).

Although large wild herbivores and carnivores were traditionally abundant in the Mediterranean landscapes, the Roman Empire led to a near-complete extermination opening up for domesticated livestock to fill the niche in most of Western Europe. Until the dissolution of the fascist regimes in Spain and Portugal, these more traditional agricultural systems continued to favour extensive forms of pastoral production, including the care for extensive and semi-feral livestock, such as the large flocks of wild horses in Galicia and Northern Portugal, which used to roam there. Also, transhumance had a role to play in terms of biodiversity, disseminating seeds across vast stretches of land and regions . However, after entering the EU, large-scale industrialised farming was furthered, leading to the abandonment of more marginal lands, thus emptying the landscapes of animals and people. One consequence has been the more widespread and intense wildfires releasing copious amounts of carbon as well as causing severe losses of human lives and property.

What is needed?

• A courageous new policy adopting an active trophic rewilding policy
• A new ethos regarding nature conservation – from protection to ecosystem restoration
• An increased supply of animals – the need to develop ambitious and international breeding programmes of “pools” of wild animals stemming from free-range flocks
• Reorientation of subsidies from production to ecosystem restoration

The Return of the Ice Age?

One of the questions raised by the rewilding movement is whether this paradigm implies a return to long-bygone landscapes or whether the project is future-oriented. Without a doubt, the latter is the case as rewilding foremost works to reconstitute and reconstruct robust self-regulating ecosystems where nature and the remains of our threatened biodiversity may once more flourish.

However, the question is not mute. We shall never return to any world that was. Nevertheless, we may still use history to inspire us to imagine what kind of landscapes we might encounter in the future, if rewilding became a dominant and preferred paradigm – as should be the case because of its climatic advantages. Might it be a version of the Pleistocene landscape before, during, and immediately after the Last Ice Age? Or – as is it more likely – might a version of the Early Medieval Landscape be the next vision forEuropean Nature?

To ponder this question, we must explore some aspects of what took place in nature and landscape during and after the Roman Empire.

A Return of the Early Medieval Landscape?

“There is a third kind, consisting of animals called URI. These are a little below the elephant’s in size and have the appearance, colour, and shape of a bull. Their strength and speed are extraordinary; they spare neither man nor wild beast which they have espied. With much effort, the Germans hound them into pits and kill them. The young men harden themselves with this exercise and practice this kind of hunting. Those who have slain the greatest number of them and can produce their horns publicly to serve as evidence receive great praise. But not even when taken very young can the animals be rendered familiar to men and tamed. The size, shape, and appearance of their horns differ much from the horns of our oxen. These they anxiously seek after, to bind the tips with silver that they may be used as cups at their most sumptuous entertainments. ”
(Caesar De Bello Gallico, chapter XXVIII)

The period of megafauna was undoubtedly the Pleistocene, which ended 11.700 years ago. It included aurochs, wild boars, giant deer, elephants and massive predators. This assembly of animals roamed the Mediterranean when food for herbivorous animals was widely available in the forests along coastlines and rivers whose estuaries, marshes and lagoons would serve as grazing for these large animals. Although extinction began long before the Roman Empire flourished, the Mediterranean forests’ destruction followed in the Roman Army’s footsteps with its insatiable need for energy, metal, building resources, timber for shipbuilding, animals for entertainment and leather for shoes. In this connection, hides from the “Urus” – the auroch – were especially sought after. Thus, a riot broke out among the Frisians, who were obliged to pay their taxes in hides, when the Roman governor in AD 28 suddenly demanded hides from aurochses. The Frisians, who could not meet these demands, suffered forced requisitions of cattle, confiscations of land and enslavement of the families of defaulters, which eventually led to rebellion an mass slaughter.

Thus, judging by Caesar, the Romans not only demanded their hides as tribute, they also tried to domesticate the aurochses. And even though Caesar denied the feasibility, we may judge by the size of Roman cattle that they probably succeeded again and again in mingling domesticated cattle with the grand wild beasts roaming the ancient landscape.

However, these breeding programs fell apart after the Fall of the Roman Empire, leaving the Early Medieval People in a wilder landscape with their small and insignificant animals. At the same time, the diminished flocks of aurochses retreated to the peripheries of Eastern Europe to become extinct as a distinct wild variety in the 16th – 18th century. We do know, however, that more or less semi-feral cattle and horses continued to roam the landscapes. (Hence, it never involved much ingenuity to back breed a passable version of the aurochs as part of the so-called Taurus Project).

To sum up, most European peasants in the Early Middle Ages moved through a vastly different and much more animated landscape than ours, in which wild horses and aurochses mingled freely with semi-feral flocks of cattle and horses. Once again, Europe was home to a much more extensive pastoral economy. Granted, the large areas of the loess landscape in present-day Eastern France and Western Germany continued to be farmed intensively. Incidentally, this landscape became the core of the Carolingian world and the recreation of the West Roman Empire in 800, when Charlemagne was crowned in Rome. However, the traditional pre-Roman agricultural system was once again dominant on the peripheries. 

How should we imagine this landscape? At its core was one or more independent semi-pastoral peasant holdings consisting of intensively cultivated fields near the farm, surrounded by more or less extensively used pastoral grounds – meadows, grazing forests and more remote wildernesses. We know, this landscape came about in the sixth century following tumultuous climatic and political upheavals, widespread cooling in the north and the devastation caused by the Justinian plague. And we know the next four to five hundred years gave the European nature and landscape a much-needed breathing space following the intense overexploitation caused by the Roman Imperial army and administration. 

Perhaps, we might be inspired by these events?

Karen Schousboe

SELECTED SOURCES

Abandoned Farmland: Past Failures or future opportunities for Europe’s Green Deal? A Baltic case-study
By Kristine Valujeva, Mariana Debernardini, Elizabeth K. Freed, Aleksejs Nipers, and Rogier P.O. Schulte
In: Environmental Science & Policy (2022) Vol 128, pp 175-184

Addressing challenges for large-scale trophic rewilding
By Deli Saavedra, Néstor Fernández, and Jens-Christian Svenning
In: Journal for Nature Conservation (2023) Vol 73, 26382, p. 2)

Animating the Carbon Cycle: How Wildlife Conservation Can Be a Key to Mitigate Climate Change
Oswald J. Schmitz and Magnus Sylvén
In: Environment: Science and Policy for Sustainable Development (2023) Vol 65, No 3, pp 5-17

Dynamics of rural landscapes in Marginal Areas of Northern Spain: Past, Present, and Future
José Antonio González Díaz, Rafael Celaya, Felipe Fernández García, Koldo Osoro, Rocío Rosa García
In: Land Degradation and Development.
(2019) Volume 30, Issue2, pp. 141-150

Grasslands and scrublands in the northwest of the Iberian Peninsula: Silvopastoral systems and nature conservation
By Fransisco Javier Silva-Pando, Maria José Rozados Lorenzo & María Pilar González Hernández
In: Pasture Landscapes and Nature Conservation. By Bernd Redecker, Werner Härdtle, Peter Finck, Uwe Riecken, Eckhard Schröder
Springer Verlag 2002

Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), Climate Change 2022: Mitigation of Climate Change. Contribution of Working Group III to the Sixth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
Ed. by P. R. Shukla et al.
Cambridge University Press, 2022.

New Perspectives on the Medieval ‘Agricultural Revolution’. Crop, Stock and Furrow.
By Helena Hamerow and Mark McKerracher
Liverpool University Press 2022
Open Access

Trade-offs between passive and trophic rewilding for biodiversity and ecosystem functioning
By Andrew J. Tanentzap a, Georgia Daykin a 1, Thea Fennell a 1, Ella Hearne a 1, Matthew Wilkinson b, Peter D. Carey a, Ben A. Woodcock c, Matthew
In: Biological Conservation (2023) Vol 281

The post Rewilding – the Natural Climate Solution appeared first on Wilder Europe.

In a recent article, the position is outlined that rewilding is closely related to traditional nature restoration and, hence, just another form of human domination of nature. An anthropological analysis of this thinking shows how it is fundamentally mistaken.

In the 1920s and 1930s, an attempt was made to resurrect the aurochs (Bos primigenius primigenius), the extinct wild ancestor of contemporary domestic cattle. The back-bred species produced was called the ‘Heck Cattle, named after the two brothers who carried out the project.

Since the aurochs at that point had been considered extinct since the 17th century and modern genetics science had not yet appeared on the scene, the animals were recreated by a clumsy and, in fact, just aesthetically inspired form of backbreeding involving Spanish Fighter bulls. Most of the animals died during the war. However, after WW2, the work continued to breed on a few remaining animals in München, and today Heck Cattle are used as part of eco-restoration projects in numerous places in Europe. Over 2000 animals live in Europe, of which 600 roam the infamous Oostvaardersplassen.

In a new article, the philosopher Eric Katz argues that the attempt to create the Heck cattle as a form of resurrected aurochs and their subsequent use in rewilding projects (as in the Oostvaardersplassen in the Netherlands) is a prime example of the ongoing human project of the domination of nature characterising the Anthropocene.

The Heck Cattle as Nazi Symbol

Eric Katz is known for his arduous fight for the natural world to be respected in its right. However, he is perhaps better known for his work to uncover the character of the first national environmental preservation policies in the 20th century forged in the crucible of the fascist and genocidal regime of Nazi Germany. Therin, the backbred aurochs came to play a symbolic role. Although the project began in the 20s and reflected the standard search for “national” cattle and “horses” in the romantic quest for the “homeland”, it was heavily promoted as part of the resurrection of the Early Medieval Germanic Empire. The dream was to fill the extensive “primaeval” forests of Eastern Germany with megafauna enacting, playing the role of prey in reenacting the glorious past of the German race and its future supremacy.

Undoubtedly, the German preoccupation with racial thinking played a part in this preoccupation with the eugenic endeavour to backbreed the Aurochs. Also, the idea that nature might be cleansed of its later impurities by returning to a more pristine and purer state of affairs does act like a vivid and dire remembrance of the Holocaust.

According to Eric Katz, however, the story of the Heck Cattle has a wider resonance in the Nazi form of landscape planning, which they sought to “Germanize”. In this project, the architect Alwin Seifert and the railway engineer Fritz Todt led the way to resurrect the “Heimat”, a somewhat untranslatable word with its very material and tangential connotations referring to the German peasant, his family, his farm, his village and his landscape – in short, his “Lebensraum”. In this crucible, the idea of history, geography, and ethnicity blended with the concept of the healthy and balanced life of the proper German. Thus, the idea was not just to restore the native flora and fauna but also remove the “degenerate” – we would say “invasive” – species. The result was the idea of a “Racialised Landscape” as opposed to the “Romantic Landscape” of the 19th century. In this racialised landscape, the Nazis dreamt of dark forests once again teeming with aurochs, bison, wolves and eagles, all animals which were recruited to enact the myth in the best manner of Roland Barthes.

The Oostvaardersplassen and Rewilding

Based on this idea of the “Racialised Landscape” filled with “potent and wild symbols”, Eric Katz uses the history of the first European rewilding project of the “The Oostvaardersplassen” to argue his point. The Dutch biologist Franz Vera’s creation was set at 60km2 or 6000 ha; the aim was to recreate an independent and autonomous ecosystem by releasing wild horses, wild cattle, and red deer into the nature reserve and leaving it to its own devices. As is well known, the project has been a success insofar as it did succeed in creating a biodiverse and lively nature reserve of marshland and grassland. However, the initial cruelty involved in fencing the area and letting the megafauna die of “natural” starvation and illnesses without letting the animals leave the reservation turned the place into a political, ethical, and social battleground. The early photos still reverberate on the internet and gave “rewilding” a seriously bad press. Due to the presence of the Heck Cattle and its ignominious connotations as “Nazi Cattle”, the Oostvaardersplassen has occasionally been likened to a Concentration Camp on Facebook.

The point Katz wishes to make, however, reaches further. In short, He claims that “Rewilding projects do not so much re-create a ‘wild’ nature free from human intervention and activity”. Rewilding is just another form of the human management of natural processes to achieve anthropocentric goals, he writes. He argues “that policies of rewilding have historical antecedents (and parallels in philosophical meaning) to the Nazi plans for re-creating an authentic Aryan landscape in the lands of Eastern Europe. The case history of the Heck cattle projects illustrates the danger of pursuing radical forms of management of the natural world.”

But does this argument hold, we may ask? Is it fair to judge a Dutch nature restoration scheme, which has served as a pilot project for the rewilding movement, just because it chose to use Heck cattle instead of the belted Galloways, which are now the primary breed used in extensive grazing and rewilding projects?

Does the use of Heck Cattle at Oostvaarder necessarily have to taint the general idea of rewilding as it is practised with joy, pleasure, and love elsewhere?

Rewilding? What is it?

To answer this question, Katz recounts the outline of the debate between different leading scientists and practitioners on how to understand rewilding, where the main element is forsaking (traditional) ecological restoration to further self-sustaining ecosystems devoid of human interference of any sort. Thus, the main difference is lodged in a different set of values considering the role of human management – on one hand, painstaking caring and, on the other hand, turning our backs to the rewilded enclave. However, Katz chooses to see these two positions as orientation points on a continuum where total abandonment is impossible. He rejects this distinction between the two approaches to nature, pointing out that none takes out “the imposition of human intentionality on natural ecosystems”. Both approaches are “infused with human purpose”.

Ktz wishes to make the point that we cannot escape the mortal sin of intervention, inscribed in our genes as human beings. “Thus, the fundamental philosophical issue in an understanding of rewilding is the role of this human management and control, for it is an ever-present reality in the re-created”, he writes. Whether we wish for it or not, the result is hybrid landscapes. Following this, Katz points out (quoting Drenthen 2018) that “There is no escaping from history: all rewilding landscapes are layered cultural landscapes”.

A cultural and political question?

This leads to Katz’s conclusion, which claims that any “rewilding” project represents a form of “cultural politics” just as classical well-ordered restoration policies do. And in the end, any light-handed management of a particular human intervention might lead to a situation that limits the autonomy of the people who formerly lived on and off the land. Even if the wish to culturally dominate both animals, landscapes, and human races might hopefully never again reach the apogee of Nazi thinking, it does harbour the germs and spores. “But affirming the obvious fact that contemporary rewilding projects are not based on Nazi ideology or anti-Semitism does not remove rewilding in general from the overall process of human management, control and domination of nature”, Katz writes and concludes: “Rewilding is a policy that seeks the conscious transformation of the natural world into a human and culturally determined landscape. Rewilding does not restore nature or re-create a wild and spontaneous natural system. Rather, the acceptance of rewilding as a valid environmental policy acknowledges that nature and natural landscapes no longer exist and that the entire world is an artefact produced by human management and control”.

How to counter this argument?

How should we engage with Katz’s arguments? One way is to do a “cultural” and “anthropological” analysis of the formulation in this final conclusion. The point becomes to review Katz’s and others’ position on rewilding as an expression of a cultural stance rather than a philosophical set of arguments.

“No longer exist”, he writes, positing the idea that once upon a time, authentic nature and natural landscapes did, in fact, exist, whether in Paradise or the Pleistocene. Thus, whichever way he looks, he seems unable to escape the idea that once we did not exist as human beings but were just animals incapable of reflection and narration. At some point, however, we metaphorically speaking “ate from the apple” and were kicked out of this pulsating and perfect ecosystem to try and come to terms with our potential to interfere. Which he correctly points out, we have been doing ever since we shed the ape skin of our forefathers.

The interesting point to make here, however, is that Katz’s form of thinking, as viewed by anthropologists, may be considered just one of four different cultural or political takes on how to deal with nature, which, from an anthropological point of perspective, may be considered of as “Thought Styles” (presented best in Douglas 1995). Originally, these “Thought Styles”, as argued by Douglas, were characterised structurally through the organisation of their corresponding social landscapes. However, later anthropological thinking (Schousboe 1990) demonstrated the advantage of looking upon them as not just thought styles organising sociality but also thought styles structured temporally – with the position of Katz’s representing the narrative nostalgia of the ultimate modern “restorer” as opposed to the future-oriented constant moving and pulsating post-modern “creator” busy recruiting co-creators – in the rewilding connection the countless myriad living beings inhabiting nature.

In this sense, rewilding represents not just a method of nature restoration representing the usual interventionist activities of the social engineer dreaming of the authentic past lost forever, but rather the fun and play involved in letting loose to see what happens in the time to come.

Granted, from a formal philosophical point of view, both positions (indeed all four) may be deemed interventionists. However, to judge them ethically, we need to see them as differentiated as to their outcome. What type of nature view is best to preserve Gaia for future generations, is the question we might ask? As opposed to the alternative: Which nature view allows for the free flourishing of people and peoples to the detriment of the wilder world?

While one (Katz’s) is hopelessly caught up in the traumatic loss of the aurochs and the nostalgia for the time before 1627, when the last living specimen was allegedly lost, the rewilding position notices the fact that studies of aDNA unambiguously show that aurochs and domesticated cattle mixed and matched up through history. And yes, backbreeding by the Heck-brothers was part of a deplorable fascist enterprise creating a more pure and “Germanic” world. However, the modern-day Tauros project supported by Rewilding Europe is part of quite another venture focusing on releasing the joy of playing around by reimagining a more pulsating, vibrant world filled with the ongoing creation of the future.

Karen Schousboe

SOURCES:

What the Heck Cattle Have to Do with Environmentalism: Rewilding and the Continuous Project of the Human Management of Nature
Eric Katz
In: Ethics, Policy & Environment
Online 13 June 2023

Rewilding in layered landscapes as a challenge to place identity.
By M Drenthen
Environmental Values (2018) Vol 27 No 4, pp 405–425.

Thought Styles: Critical Essays on Good Taste 
by Mary Douglas (Author)
Sage 1995

Slangen i paradiset : unges holdninger til fremtiden
By Karen Schousboe
Undervisningsministeriet 1990

READ MORE:

Return of the Mighty Beast, the Aurochs

The post Is Rewilding just Another Form of Domination of Nature? appeared first on Wilder Europe.

In the 18th century, the aurochs – the wild cousins of our domesticated cattle – still roamed Moldavia. Never more than variety, they were just the wild version of the common species, the Bos Taurus. To claim that the last aurochs died out in 1627 in Mazovia in Poland is to insist that the species – the Bos or the common cattle – became extinct at that point.

Instead, as with wild horses, we might consider the different animals as belonging to one species comprising different varieties – from feral and semi-feral animals (such as the Exmoor pony) to full-blooded domesticated race-horses worth tens of millions of dollars.

What we should not subscribe to is the idea that they belong to different “races” or “breeds” – being the classification system, which only applies to domesticated breeds.

Nevertheless, a dedicated project aiming at “backbreeding” the Aurochs – the so-called Tauros Project – has worked on the presupposition that it is possible to “reconstruct” the B Bos primigenius, also known as the Aurochs. Recently, the release of a herd of these animals has been received with enthusiasm by people working in the rewilding movement. The question is, how should we understand this project?

The Tauros Project

Just as feral and semiferal varieties of horses are highly prized, and several projects work to back-breed the different varieties with the intact capabilities to live in the wild, the Dutch Tauros project (Stichting Tauros) has worked since 2009 to “backbreed” a modern-day version of the aurochs based on identifying the common “aurochs-genes” in the primitive European breeds still roaming wilder Europe.

The backbone of the projects consists of thirty ancient and more “primitive” breeds of the ordinary Bos Taurus, initially sequenced. In 2015, these results were compared to the successful sequencing of the first complete sequenced genome from a humerus bone from a British Aurochs, predating the first neolithic peasants. All-in-all, 38 breeds have now contributed to the project.

From this comparison, the scientists were able to identify seven Iberian breeds to be closest. Using those breeds and a few others, the scientists in the project worked to backbreed a type of cattle which phenotypically aligned with the extinct aurochs – primarily size, colour and the curvatures of the horns. The aim is 2030 to create a series of herds consisting of at least 150 animals, each living free and wild in rewilding areas all over Europe.

A flock of these backbred animals were recently released into the Greater Côa Valley in Portugal for the first time. More precisely, three Tauros bulls and 12 cows, four of which are pregnant, arrived in Portugal following their transportation from the Netherlands by Stichting Tauros (the Tauros Foundation). The animals were released into an enclosed paddock so that they could acclimate to their new environment, whilst the team monitored their health and behaviour for a couple of weeks before release. A few days ago, the animals were finally released into the free in a valley once home to the ancestor of the Tauros, the aurochs. Traces of the ancient bovine can still be found as part of prehistoric rock engravings within the Côa Valley, paying tribute to a long-standing cultural relationship with these animals.

Ecological role

As a result of their grazing and browsing habits, the newly released herd will contribute directly to creating varied and biodiverse habitats whilst removing dense vegetation and reducing the risk of devastating wildfires, which will allow native woodland to regenerate. With bulls weighing more than a ton, the animals will be able to set their mark seriously.

They also play a crucial role in the trophic food chain. The Côa Valley is already home to Iberian wolves and vultures, both of which will significantly benefit from the return of a large bovine. Whilst lesser-known scavenging invertebrates, birds and small mammals will also thrive due to their presence.

Restoring open plains grazing

Like much of Europe, Portugal has been experiencing the depopulation of rural communities for decades. People moved away from working the land, and vast numbers of grazing livestock were lost. Once open landscapes are now being covered by dense scrub vegetation or vast swathes of young forest, both poor in biodiversity and susceptible to wildfire.

“Large herbivores play an essential role in consuming biomass and creating more resilient landscapes to protect against wildfire,” explains Rewilding Portugal’s Head of Conservation, Sara Aliácar. “They will also be excellent at spreading seeds to help restore the habitats that have already been lost to fires, improving spaces for wildlife.”

The long-horned Tauros are entirely self-sufficient, requiring no further supplementation post-release. As they free-roam, they can also innately defend themselves from predation. As the animals restore the landscape, opportunities for local people will increase too.

Every summer, fires threaten Portugal’s forested areas. Grazing and trampling remove excess combustible material and lowers the risk of wildfires. Also, the large grazers will contribute to the future carbon sequestration needed to fulfil the climate goal of the Paris Convention.

The Tauros are not alone in their restorative role. They will join some of the 25 native-breed Sorraia horses Rewilding Portugal and partners have already released. A herd of 13 horses free-roam the northern part of the Ermo das Águias region, whilst the Tauros have been released in the south. The team look forward to the two species meeting and grazing the land together, just as their wild ancestors would have done.

The benefits of introducing semi-wild herbivores to these regions are already apparent. Wilder, naturally-grazed landscapes are now showing the early signs of becoming a nature-rich mosaic of biodiverse habitats.

“This is the first release in Portugal, and we plan to introduce Tauros to more areas within the Greater Côa Valley as we continue to improve connectivity,” says Deli Saavedra, Head of Landscapes for Rewilding Europe.

The releases will help to realise the rewilding vision for the area, with the Rewilding Portugal team and local partners now working to strengthen an important 120,000-hectare ecological corridor between the Douro region in the north and the Malcata region in the south. Their efforts are supported by a grant from the Endangered Landscapes Programme.

The Ancient Animal – the Bos Primigenius

So, what is the modern-day Taurus? To answer, we have to uncover the story of the wild aurochs, which roamed unhindered from China to the British Isles for several millions of years until 14.000 years ago. During this period, the great Eurasian Steppe was covered in temperate open forests alternating with steppe landscapes. The natural range would have shifted with the climate between glacial and interglacial periods.

The earliest archaeological evidence for the domestication of the aurochs dates back to the Middle East ca. 9000 BC. At the same time, the first domesticated cattle in Europe were archaeologically documented in the seventh millennium BC in Spain. This domesticated bovid was, perhaps, imported via the Donau and the Mediterranean. The Balkan Buša breed may genetically represent this early cattle, while the semi-feral Maremma in Tuscany may have Etruscan and earlier roots.

Until recently, scientists believed that the aurochs mainly lived in forests with closed canopies preferring riverine landscapes. New evidence suggests that the animals were always grass-eating animals moving effortlessly through the more or less open forested landscapes covering the Eurasian steppes. Ultimately, this preference for open forests and grassland led to a conflicted situation or “end-game” between the early Neolithic peasants and their domestic flocks.

A study from the submerged site at Neustadt in the Bay of Lübeck tells part of the story. The site was excavated in 2000-2006, and thousands of shards, faunal remains, plant and macrofossil remains, and flint artefacts were uncovered. Also, analysis of lipid residue of charred food crusts in Ertebølle pointed-based and Funnel Beaker pottery was studied to determine the shift from late foragers to early farmers in the settlement. The site was settled for over 600 years between 4400 and 3800 BC and fell within the transition phase.

The faunal remains comprised 12,693 bones, with a third identified at the species level. Of the 26 species in the material, the harp seal was the most common (14%), followed by wild boars (11%) and aurochs (10%). Red and rode deer, harbour porpoises and water voles played minor roles. The percentages are based on MNI – the minimal number of individuals.

Interestingly, domesticated cattle and sheep or goats comprised only 2% of the assemblage. Radiocarbon dates of the domestic cattle – identified with aDNA – dates it to ca. 3950 BC (4226-3705), the timespan generally accepted as the period when the early Funnel Beaker People migrated to Europe (c. 4300) to emerge in modern-day Northern Germany c. 4100-3950 BC. The study, however, shows that domesticated cattle played an insignificant role during the transition period compared to the continued hunting for large mammals, including the aurochs in the oak-dominated forests and open grasslands of the period.

In terms of size, the Aurochs differed from cattle. The bull might weigh over a tonne and feature shorter trunks and longer legs. Elongated heads and impressive horns might reach 120 cm in length and were black, while cows were smaller and had reddish brown coats. Descriptions indicate the animal was swift and agile. In terms of temperament, it could become hot-tempered and aggressive when confronted.

Interbreeding

One of the challenges identifying aurochs and domesticated cattle in archaeological assemblages is the wide variety of sizes among individuals of the two biological varieties. Due to an overlap of sizes, a clear distinction is not often possible. Although part of the domestication process was breeding smaller dairy cattle, the Aurochs cow might be just as small as a domestic bull, making the identification complicated without aDNA. Also, during the transition period (c. 4100 – 3900 BC), climatic and geological shifts caused a significant rise in sea levels producing the archipelago in the Baltic and Kattegat creating genetically isolated populations of Aurochs, perhaps causing a series of phenotypical changes in terms of size.

Part of the domestication process in Europe was the breeding of more miniature cattle. Scientists have suggested that the smaller sizes reflected poorer diets offered to animals, which were kept close to the peasant farm for reasons of their manure. However, studies of the bone- assemblages in Northern Europe show another trend. Here, domesticated cattle appeared in the early phase to increase body size. This fits well with the conclusion that occasionally – and perhaps intentionally – interbreeding (introgression) took place.

Genetically, ancient cattle all over Europe have been shown to carry mitochondrial DNA from both the Middle Eastern pool and the Aurochs, indicating that introgression from wild aurochs into domestic flocks took place and was probably more widespread and frequent than hitherto expected. It appears purposeful restocking with wild aurochs was relatively common among herders in peripheries such as Northern Europe, Switzerland, and perhaps Spain.

Thus, casual interbreeding between aurochs and domesticated cattle continued in Antiquity in the same way as interbreeding of feral, semi-feral and domestic horses was common. This might occur as a happenstance when wild stallions or bulls recruited domesticated mares or cows to join their flocks. But it was definitely also intentionally practised, as witnessed by the famous cups from the 6th century BC Vafio in Greece, which show us in great detail how a capture might be organised – mildly by luring the bull to discover a willing cow. Or more wildly, by capturing the ferocious bulls with nets. This evidence aligns with the famous description of the Aurochs by Caesar:

“There is a third kind, consisting of animals called URI. These are a little below the elephant’s in size and have the appearance, colour, and shape of a bull. Their strength and speed are extraordinary; they spare neither man nor wild beast which they have espied. With much effort, the Germans hound them into pits and kill them. The young men harden themselves with this exercise and practice this kind of hunting. Those who have slain the greatest number of them and can produce their horns publicly to serve as evidence receive great praise. But not even when taken very young can the animals be rendered familiar to men and tamed. The size, shape, and appearance of their horns differ much from the horns of our oxen. These they anxiously seek after, to bind the tips with silver that they may be used as cups at their most sumptuous entertainments.”
From: Caesar De Bello Gallico, chapter XXVIII

Inbreeding or backbreeding?

Scientific studies and historical sources thus document that both interbreeding and inbreeding continued to take place up until the extinction of the last herd at Jaktorow in 1627. We may therefore ask whether the backbreeding of the Tauros makes sense. Might we not be just as satisfied with the present-day descendants devolved through interbreeding programmes of all sorts? And – cutting to the chase – is this what the backbreeding programme of the Tauros and other similar programmes consist of?

Granted, the auroch was a larger and perhaps more ferocious animal with a different appearance and colour than the domesticated ox. However, wilder and more primitive breeds continue to live as descendants of animals intermixing in medieval and premodern landscapes. And yes, we do need megafauna to help the ecological restitution of our landscapes. But do we need animals created as part of an intentional backbreeding programme?

We may well ask: Does the modern backbreeding of the Stichting Tauros make more sense than the programme the zoo directors Heinz and Lutz Heck instigated in the 30s? A backbreeding programme, which in the best Nazi tradition of racial thinking, aimed to recreate the “Ur Tiere” of the Germanic youngsters hunting for horns in Caesar’s vignette. An endeavour which resulted in the Heck cattle and, ultimately, should not be mistaken for the Tauros backboned by the Stichtung.

Further, what will happen if any of these carefully bred new/old varieties are let loose for real in wilder Europe and begin to create an admixture with local cattle or even the European bison or visits? The latter animals are already genetically documented to be mixed with cattle, likely reflecting the Aurochs and Bison intermingling in the large great East European wildernesses in Late Medieval Europe. Currently, the wilderness at Bornholm housing a celebrated herd of European bison has been obliged not to include wild or semi-feral cattle in the planned National Nature Park there, as “they might mingle”.

Also, the backbreeders of the Tauros programme seem not to have gone the whole way, discarding some of the more likely candidates for breeding, the temperamental fighting bulls from Spain. This restraint has been called for to initally avoid a popular revolt when letting the new Tauros loose. As opposed to this, the descendants of the Heck cattle (curiously know as the Taurus) are known to be less “friendly”. Thus, a few years ago, these considerations led the managers at Lille Vildmose to move their Heck Cattle from a small forest close to the beach, where people walkws by, and further inland to a rather dreary enclosure. Another argument was the cost.

To some extent, the question of backbreeding has to be debated in the same manner as reenactments and archaeological reconstructions. Indeed, we might gain substantial new knowledge about the wild ancestors of our domesticated subspecies by tweaking the genes of their descendants. On the other hand, if trophic rewilding ultimately means letting nature run its course while building robust ecosystems, we need megafauna to ambush our well-ordered mindsets and traditional rules for nature planning. Thus, we might just let loose the more primitive descendants of the Bos Primigenius and the Bos Taurus to mingle as evolution would dictate.

The situation resembles the challenge posed to curators left with a crumbling medieval ruin on the brink of falling apart due to wind and weather. Do we rebuild the ruin, creating a pastiche? Or do we try to protect the ruined sites from our imagination and phantasies?

Karen Schousboe

FEATURED PHOTO:

Tauros set free in the Coa Valley © Rewilding Portugal and Claudio Noy 2023

NOTE:

The spelling of Tauros of Taurus is not used interchangeably here. The Greek spelling refers to the modern Dutch project of resurrecting the aurochs, while the Latin refers to the old project, also known as the Heck Cattle project.

BASED ON:

press release from Rewilding Europe: First Tauros release in the Greater Côa Valley will boost natural grazing
Rewilding Europe 2023

Stichting Taurus: Aurochs Genetics: A Cornerstone of biodiversity.
Rewilding Europe 2015.

SOURCES:

On the Origin of Cattle: How Aurochs Became Cattle and Colonized the World
By Paolo Ajmone-Marsan, José Fernando Garcia, Johannes A. Lenstra and the Globaldiv Consortium.
In: Evolutionary Anthropology (2010) vol 19 pp 148-157

Genome sequencing of the extinct Eurasian wild aurochs, Bos primigenius, illuminates the phylogeography and evolution of cattle
By Stephen D E Park, David A. Magee, Paul A. McGettigan, Matthew D. Teasdale, Ceiridwen J. Edwards, Amanda J. Lohan, Alison Murphy, Martin Braud, Mark T. Donoghue, Yuan Liu, Andrew T. Chamberlain, Kévin Rue-Albrecht, Steven Schroeder, Charles Spillane, Shuaishuai Tai, Daniel G. Bradley, Tad S. Sonstegard, Brendan J. Loftus & David E. MacHugh
In: Genome Biology 82015) Vol 16 mo 234

Cattle husbandry and aurochs hunting in the Neolithic of northern Central Europe and southern Scandinavia. A statistical approach to distinguish between domestic and wild forms
By Ulrich Schmölcke, Daniel Groß
In International Journal of Osteoarchaeology (2021) vol 31 no 1,

Transitions During Neolithisation Processes in Southern Scandinavia. New Insights from Faunal Remains and Pottery from the Site Neustadt LA 156 in Northern Germany.
By Aikaterini Glykou
In: Past Societies. Human Development in Landscapes. Ed by Johannes Müller and Andrea Ricci.
Sidestone Press 2020.

The history of the European aurochs (Bos primigenius) from the Middle Pleistocene to its extinction: an archaeological investigation of its evolution, morphological variability and response to human exploitation
By Elizabeth Wright
PhD, Department of Archaeology, University of Sheffield. 2013

Investigating cattle husbandry in the Swiss Late Neolithic using different scales of temporal precision: potential early evidence for deliberate livestock “improvement” in Europe
By Elizabeth Wright
In: Archaeological and Anthropological Sciences (2021) volume 13, Article number: 36

Ancient DNA analysis of Scandinavian medieval drinking horns and the horn of the last aurochs bull. 2018
Maiken Hemme Bro-Jørgensen, Christian Carøe, Filipe G. Vieira, Sofia Nestor, Ann Hallström, Kristian M. Gregersen, Vivian Etting, M. Thomas P. Gilbert, Mikkel-Holger S. Sinding,
In: Journal of Archaeological Science (2018) Vol 99, pp 47-54

READ ALSO:

The post Return of the Mighty Beast, the Aurochs appeared first on Wilder Europe.

“There [in the common land] they gathered palm hearts, and asparagus, and oregano and mint… firewood to take to sell in the city for its supply and for the ovens to bake bread”.
From: AGS. Consejo Real, Legajo 24, F. 1, Years: 1505 – 1511. As quoted by Emilio Martin (2019) p. 288

Few years ago, a group of biologists from Madrid [1] carried out a study of wild edible plants in Spain. Based on a review of 46 ethnobotanical and ethnographical sources from Spain, plus fieldwork in some provinces, they were able to register a total of 419 wild plants belonging to 67 families used as vegetables, fruits, beverages and seasoning.

Among vegetables, the most common plant is fennel, wild salads and watercress. Other common herbs are bladder campion, wild asparagus, and Spanish oyster thistles. All of these are still regularly consumed as part of scrambled eggs or omelettes. Or they are used as a green delicatessen in soups eaten during Lent or mixed in stews.

Among fruits, wild blackberries are mentioned the most often, as are the fruits from strawberry trees. But acorns from oak trees are less eaten although they have been used  as an alternative in times of famine. To this group also belong sweet chestnuts and hazelnuts as well as wild apples, pears and plums. On the other hand, the fruits of hawthorn are seldom used today. The same goes for rose hips.

Many wild plants are used in beverages as teas or fusions, while certain wild fruits are commonly used to brew liquors. Also, there is the use of wild herbs as seasoning. Mentioned in the modern sources are oregano, rosemary, thymes of different varieties, mint, laurel, summer savoury, and wild onions. Finally, the survey mentions numerous sweet roots, which children used to search for and chew on as well as wild olives used for oil extraction and capers pickled in vinegar or brine.

From ethnographic studies, it appears that people consider these kinds of foodstuff as a famine food. Informants also refer to how wild plants were gathered and used during the Civil War in the 30s and the next decades. The question is, of course, whether the tradition to utilise such plants and fruits were a common practice in the Middle Ages? Or whether it was considered more of a famine food during this period?

As it happens, there are abundant late medieval sources, which can help us glimpse the role of wild harvests in an earlier time. The background is the events which took place after the conquest of Andalusia following the Battle of Las Navas de Tolosa in 1212

Andalusia after the Conquest

From 1212 to 1252, the kingdoms of Castille-Leon and Aragon succeeded in conquering Andalusia. Only the Kingdom of Granada continued as a Muslim enclave until 1492. One of the consequences was a massive expulsion and migration of the Muslim population back across the Mediterranean. This led to a severe depopulation, calling for a vigorous effort to repopulate and settle the land, which was busy turning into a wasteland.

Thus, not only the reorganisation and with it the implementation of religious and juridical institutions in the newly conquered lands presented a significant challenge. Also, the repopulation was on the agenda. The influx of new settlers from the north, but also their continued subservience as well as defence demanded a serious deployment of administrative energy, as well as economic resources.

One of the first jobs was to get an overview of the land and its available resources. Hence, inspectors were sent to create registers, the so-called Libros de Repartimientos. Of these several are known. Best studied are the registers from Valencia, Murcia, Sevilla, Loja and Almeria. They tell us not only how the land used to be worked, but also how the new settlers were expected to go about the business.

Thus, the Libro de Repartimiento from Seville registered 258,611 ha land. Of this, 83% was registered as bread-land, 16% was covered in olive groves, and a mere 1% was either irrigated or laid out as wine-yards. Although irrigation-systems may have deteriorated because of the war, it does not seem likely that pre-conquest Andalusia should be thought of as a lush irrigated garden. This was serious farmland intended to grow and harvest the ubiquitous stable diet in the middle ages: grain and olives.

After the initial conquest, the land was partitioned to the people, who had taken part in the military venture. Initially, much of this took place as an equal distribution of land to settlers, who received it as quasi-owners with only a few obligations such as to work the land, keep the buildings intact and take part in the defence against Muslim intruders, invaders and pirates. Measures were also taken to prevent the selling back of the new settlements to absentee landowners or church institutions. Arguably, a new agrarian structure based on freeholding was obviously intended.

The partition thus resulted in a landscape characterised by numerous small and independent peasant-farms. More than 50% of the “new” holdings were small, using up 19% of the available land. Medium-sized estates constituted 47% and took up 68% of the land, while only 44 large estates tilled 12% of the land. All this land was distributed to royal retainers or people, who had taken an active part in the war. Although not all worked the land personally, very many did.

However, above and beyond this land, Andalusia offered ample un-appropriated land, some of which was also arable. This land was divided into so-called alfoces – huge districts, which were allocated to Andalusian town councils, nobles, and clerical orders and churches. Initially, this land was hardly cultivated, but during the 14th and 15th centuries we learn of numerous settlements instigated by such landlords and according to – sometimes – very different principles. Many of these projects aimed at setting apart vast areas for pasturing or – in the south – vineyards.

Also, despite the initial intentions of the royal government, land tended gradually to enter the market, and people with a long-term perspective soon began to acquire land cheaply laying the foundation for their future wealth. Accordingly, by the mid 14th century, the situation had changed dramatically. Now only 8,8% of the estates were small, 56% were medium-sized, while a staggering 35% of all estates were massive; the latter accounting for 67% of the land. One factor contributing was the rules of partible inheritance and communal ownership inside sprawling families. As time went by an initial plot of land simply became too small to nourish such clans. Another challenge was likely posed by the agrarian traditions and technologies, which the new settlers had brought from the North. Not always did they fit the sub-tropic climate of the South. Finally, there seems to have been a serious depopulation going on. We don’t have figures for the region before 1530. At that point an average number of people in the Cordoba region pr. km2 was 9 – 27 with an average of 11. This may likely have been halved around the mid 14th-century crisis, before and after the Black Death. With an average population density of 5 – 6 people pr. km2, and people living in nucleated villages and small towns, large tracts must have been experienced as virtually inhabited. A testament to this is the record of bear-hunting in the Cordoba region as noticed in the 14t century Libro de la Monteria [2].

Further, as the continued threat from the Kingdom of Granada and the Muslim Marinids, rulers of Marocco, took its toll, frontier warfare nourished a belligerent class of nobles, who tended to exploit their influential positions to gain control. The typical endgame was to enclose any un-appropriated or common land lying around waiting to be expropriated and used for cattle ranching. We know that it was mainly the city oligarchs and the administrative elite, who excelled in these practices.[3]

To sum it up: while the first settlers in the 13th century were mostly peasant freeholders, this had shifted at the end of the 14th and beginning of the 15th century. Now, the land was exploited by large, often absentee, landowners, who were utilising vast tracts of former communal land for cattle ranching and transhumance. In the post-medieval world, this led to the well-known landscape of latifundia, which, nowadays, is even more extreme. As of today, 2% of the landowners in Andalusia – mostly large-scale cooperations – control more than 50% of the land, which is worked by more-or-less illegal North-African immigrants, while 30-40% of the landed population is unemployed (2011-2013) @.

One consequence was, of course, peasant uprisings or revolts, which are mentioned for the years 1463-67, 1471-74, 1503-07 and 1521-1523. Although an incomplete catalogue, it does tell us that living conditions were seriously deteriorating in a period when gradual repopulation was taking place. Another might have been more widespread use of “famine foods” and migration to the rapidly growing cities. We get a good sense of this new landscape in the laments quoted in a document drawn up in 1492 in which we hear that “the rich and powerful men, who were well-connected within the town and many of whom held offices in the town council, had enclosed their farms from boundary to boundary and – as far as the common lands were concerned – prevented the poor peasants from entering with their livestock. And had denied them access to other resources, such as the gathering of asparagus and truffles, the hunting of rabbits and birds, and the fishing of rivers and streams”. [5: p. 479]

Wild Landscapes in Medieval Andalusia

This varied use of the wild landscape in medieval Andalusia was recently explored through the study of the numerous written notarial documents stemming from court-cases and land-arbitrations from the 13th to the 15th century [6].

Through the careful reading of the texts, a fascinating picture emerged of the various species of trees, bushes, and other plants that were exploited by the local communities between the thirteenth and fifteenth centuries.

Such texts recorded coppices, bushes, groves in valleys, as well as clusters of poplars, willows and reeds near streams; next to these might be meadows. Also, singular trees and bushes were abundant. Trees mentioned were holly oaks, fig trees, quinces, wild olives, poplars, labdanum trees, kermes oaks, holm oaks, ash, pomegranates, mastic trees, strawberry trees, palms, Iberian pear trees, pine trees and willows.

Another landscape type was the “mata” – a flat expanse covered in bushes of a diverse kind. These might be covered in a mixture of myrtles, brooms, oleanders, caper bushes, shrub oaks, buckthorns, common hawthorns, lesser bulrush, phillyrea, tamarisks and blackberry bushes.

Abundant sources document that these different types of trees, bushes and plants played significant roles as sources for firewood, timber, ash for bleach, soap, tanning. Also, they furnished wood for tools – handles, wheels, lathes, spinning wheels and loams as well as cork used as containers for food (cork has preservative qualities against insects). Canes, reeds, and lesser bulrush were used for mates and seats of chairs, while palms yielded material for hats and baskets, and other plants were used for dying textiles.

Also, meadows were abundant, filled with wild plants, which might play a nutritional or medicinal role. Mentioned in the sources are bishop’s weed, cane, artichokes, lilies, asparagus, branched asphodels, wild beans, fennel, thyme and spurge flax.

Finally, wild fruits and vegetables apparently played an essential role in the Middle ages as they still do today, where wild asparagus, thistles and fennel is collected and used in the local kitchen.

On top of this evidence, we also find the occasional mentioning of flax, hemp, agaves, woad, madder and saffron, which were all harvested and sold as dyestuff in Cordoba.

These vegetal landscapes, which were characteristic of the southern regions of the Crown of Castile from the 13th to the 15th centuries, were of great importance for nearby settlements whose inhabitants used the wild vegetation as a resource for firewood, building materials, tools, dyestuff, tanning materials, as well as wild foods and herbs.

By mapping the different types of vegetation, it becomes clear that Andalusian peasants not only had access to but also exploited a wide-ranging portfolio of landscapes characterised by a very diverse collection of trees, bushes and plants in the uncultivated peripheries of settlements and villages. At least, these resources were available until the expropriation of the commons took off in the mid 15th century as part of the formation of the latifundia, which came to dominate the post-medieval landscape.

Another critical factor, though, is the increased notice these texts took of the diverse trees and plants. While the corpus mentioned three wild plant species in the 13th century, seven were mentioned in the 14th century, but an astounding 39 different species were mentioned in the sources from the 15th century. Does this reflect the numerical increase in written sources? Or might it – perhaps – be a reflection of the increased interest in the use of more marginal resources at a time, when the peasants were increasingly pushed towards economic despondency? And towards the exploitation of local crafts catering for the growing urban markets?

Sources and Notes:

[1] Ethnobotanical Review of Wild Edible Plants in Spain
By Javier Tardío, Manuel Pardo-de-Santayana and Ramón Morales.
Botanical Journal of the Linnean Society, Volume 152, Issue 1, 1 September 2006, Pages 27–71

[2] Libro de la Montería: Based on Escorial MS Y.II.19
By Alfonso XI (King of Castile and León)
Ed. and transl. by Dennis P. Seniff
Hispanic Seminary of Medieval Studies, Vol 8., 1983

[3] Peasants in Andalusia during the Lower Middle Ages. The State of the Question in the Kingdom of Seville.
By Emilio Martín Gutiérres
In: Imago Temporis Medium Aevum vol 3, 2009, pp. 249 – 289

[4] Land: Access and Strugles in Andalusia, Spain.
By Marco Aparicio, Manuel Flores, Arturo Landeros, Sara Mingorría, Delphine Ortega and Enrique Tudela
Produced by: Educación para la Acción Crítica (EdPAC); Grupo de Investigación en Derechos Humanos y Sostenibilidad – Cátedra UNESCO de Sostenibilidad de la Universidad Politécnica de Catalunya 2012 -13

[5] The Medieval origins of the Great Landed Estates of the Guadalquivir Valley
By. E Cabrera
In: The Economic History Review, Vol 42, no. 4 pp. 465 – 483.

[6] The Vegetal Landscape of the southwest of Cordoba: a sample of the natural environment of Andalusia in the Late Middle Ages
By Javier López Rider
In: Journal of Medieval Iberian Studies
Published online 09.02.2018

FEATURED PHOTO:

View from the Castle at Almodovar. Notice the “wild” landscape along the river © The Villa Company

The post Wild Edible Plants in Medieval Spain appeared first on Wilder Europe.