48 years ago, the naturalist Jesús Garzón (Madrid, 1946) carried out a quixotic fight to save Monfragüe, the national park threatened these days by flames.
In 1974 this incredible area of Extremadura was not yet protected and the slopes of its mountains began to be terraced to plant eucalyptus trees, with the support of the National Institute for the Conservation of Nature (Icona), the Administration itself.
This historian of Spanish environmentalism tried everything to draw attention to the enormous value of this Mediterranean forest landscape, but seeing that the bulldozers did not stop, he started looking for funds to lease the farms in danger himself.
He seemed crazy, but he got money from foreign philanthropists, from Félix Rodríguez de la Fuente, from environmental organizations, from citizen collections,
he even put out of his own pocket.
Thus he saved this impressive valley of the vultures, where the Tagus and Tiétar rivers meet, which shortly after was declared a natural park in 1979 and reached maximum protection in Spain in 2007, when it became a national park.
At 76 years old, Garzón has not abandoned the battles that seem impossible and these days he is in the mountains of Guadarrama, between Madrid and Segovia, with the herd of 1,200 sheep and 200 goats from the Mesta Council with which he claims the importance of recover the shepherds and transhumance.
Ask.
What do you feel when you see the fire in Monfragüe?
Response.
I hope the fire can be controlled quickly.
Sooner or later it had to happen, because there are all the conditions for the catastrophe to occur.
P.
Are we making the wrong strategy with the fires?
R.
In Spain there have always been fires, but there was a population that occupied the territory in a stable way and knew how to handle firewood, grazing.
This removed all the leftover fuels and the fire was more easily controlled.
When I was young, when there was a fire, the bells rang and we all went out with tools, with shovels, with whatever was needed.
Then came the phase of abandonment of the field since the seventies and from then on the subject of fires began to be professionalized, which became a big business, with heavy machinery, trucks, forest tracks that sometimes caused much more damage than the fire itself.
And we see that this solution is not viable, that the fires are acquiring a larger and larger dimension and that the risk of the whole of Spain burning is increasing.
Q.
With more shepherds would there be fewer fires?
R.
In general, where there are shepherds there are no fires and, if there are, they are quickly controlled.
If there are people in the field, you can react.
But, in addition, each sheep or each goat consumes daily from six to eight kilos of combustible matter.
A herd of 1,000 sheep consumes four or five tons of grass daily, for free, moving from the valleys to the peaks, clearing brush, making firebreaks.
P.
Is it necessary to recover traditional livestock?
A.
It is essential.
In Spain we have lost more than 10 million sheep and goats in 10 years, and with them, 20,000 jobs, of professionals who were people who knew the land.
Grazing is an absolutely fundamental weapon, not only to fight fires, but also to produce food and for climate change adaptation and mitigation.
If investment were made in traditional, extensive grazing, with native breeds, employment would be generated in rural areas.
Spain, for the last 7,000 years, has been a country of shepherds.
P.
But do you think that the new generations want to be pastors?
R.
Right now, in Spain we have 50% youth unemployment of boys and girls, between 20 and 30 years old, perfectly trained and with a high ecological sensitivity.
The alternative is to return to the rural world in a modern way, not with espadrilles, with the donkey and the cart, but with mobile phones, GPS and all kinds of comforts to maintain a decent social and family life in the countryside.
Today, with a solar panel, with an alternative energy system and with the electric pens that we shepherds use, it is very comfortable.
It is a very calm, very comfortable and very independent life, where you are your own businessman and decide what to do at all times.
Q.
What is the worst thing about the fire entering Monfragüe?
R.
The greatest tragedy of the Monfragüe fire is for the black vulture nests.
Right now, in the middle of July, almost all the other birds, the black storks, the imperial eagles, the kites, the booted eagles, have already flown from the nests, but the black vultures have a very slow development and until practically September they don't they leave the nests.
Monfragüe is one of the largest colonies of black vultures in the world, with nearly 200 nesting pairs in the park and its surroundings.
Depending on how the fire progresses, it can be a tragedy.
Q.
And the vegetation?
R.
I hope they can control the fire as soon as possible.
In any case, the cork oak groves, the rockrose forests, the madroñera, which are the fundamental vegetation of that area, can be regenerated fairly quickly.
Especially cork oaks, if they are not uncorked, have a very high resistance to fire.
Q.
Why are Black Vulture nests so vulnerable?
A.
Black vulture nests are a mountain of sticks three meters in diameter and a meter or two high.
Anyone who has seen a stork's nest on a roof or a chimney realizes how much fuel wood there can be.
When that is on top of a cork or holm oak, as happens with black vultures, they burn like a torch.
These nests will have to be rebuilt as soon as possible.
But let's hope that the fire does not progress further, that it is not necessary.
Q.
Despite having the maximum protection, being a national park does not save these unique places from the flames.
R.
The Monfragüe fire should be a warning, we must invest in shepherds.
Almost 50 years ago, before it was a protected area, I managed to rent 4,000 hectares of Monfragüe to prevent its destruction.
And the guards that I hired privately at that time, through Adenex, the Association for the Defense of Nature of Extremadura, because they were precisely goatherds who lived there and grazed their goats in the surroundings of the black vulture colonies .
Today, unfortunately, the goatherds are disappearing.
Q.
How does someone born in Madrid become so passionate about transhumance?
A.
When I was little, my school was in Lagasca and when I was 10 years old I used to walk to save on the tram and have a few cents for sweets.
He got up earlier and went to school crossing the Retiro, at night.
The guards let me pass even if the gates were closed and when I went out to the Puerta de Alcalá I found the sheep that went up to Guadalajara in spring or that returned in autumn to the pastures of Toledo or Extremadura.
This childhood memory was what made me think about the madness of recovering transhumance in Madrid.
Garzón with the sheep, in the heart of Madrid. Transhumance and Nature Association
Q.
The old cattle routes are also key to adapting to climate change.
R.
The cattle trails are an escape valve for Spanish farmers, because when they need it they can leave a territory due to the heat, the drought, the cold, the snow.
Practically all the regions of Spain have a network of ancient cattle trails, prior to the 12th century, which maintains that relationship between the valleys and the peaks and which allows farmers to adapt.
P.
And also so that the plants can move to new territories.
It is not like this?
R.
For plants they are essential, because they cannot move by themselves and many will become extinct in their areas of origin with heat and drought.
But migratory cattle move over long distances about 5 million seeds for every thousand sheep.
As they are ruminants, they take a long time to digest the seeds.
A seed that is eaten in the Tagus Valley or in the Guadiana Valley, in the south of the peninsula, when walking through the ravines, can be excreted in the central system, in the Guadarrama mountains, in the Duero Valley ...
Q.
Are we really preparing for what is coming with climate change?
A.
Climate change has been predicted since the 1970s.
The NASA of President Carter of the United States has already made a detailed report on the climate of the planet.
Q.
Are you worried about where today's society is going?
R.
It has been worrying me for 50 or 60 years (laughs).
It is what we have to live and we have to fight, but in no case give up, or let our guard down.
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