Shepherds Newsletter March 2022

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The EU4 Shepherds project is bringing together shepherd trainers, land managers and rural development specialists to update the options for sharing shepherding skills in the 21st century. The new edition of the newsletter has just been launched and features a series of 9 interviews of shepherds from across Europe.

 

All the project partners in the EU4 Shepherd Project are working to collate and share information on shepherd training in Europe and to showcase innovative case studies.

Seona Anderson from Archnetwork and Cara Cameron from Lochview Rural Training attended the project meeting in Andalucia, Spain in December 2021. We agree key elements of a 21st century training manual, share best practice examples from across Europe. We heard about the success of the Livestock Protection project in Austria which is working to mitigate conflict between herders and large carnivores, and about the changes climate change will bring to Alpine Shepherding. We also visited sheep wool and meat collectives to understand their model and how elements could be applied in different countries.

The latest edition of the EU4 Shepherds newsletter includes 9 interviews with shepherds from across Europe. Please click this link to access the newsletter and visit the EU4 Shepherds website to find out more about the project (https://www.eu4shepherds.eu/)

 

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Matt Dale
102 visits

Slovenia: Bohinj Wildflower Festival Study Tour

Our guide Lucija Gartner manages a farm with her family and balances traditional farming with some diversification techniques. They have converted one of their old farm buildings into tourist accommodation and offer guided tours and cheesemaking workshops for visiting tourists. The cheesemaking workshop was one of the highlights
Seona Anderson
Seona Anderson
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Slovenia: Wildflowers & Sustainable Tourism

Faced with a crowded national park and local communities and crafts struggling to survive from traditional activities,  their strategy is to encourage and promote tourism as a way to help the communities thrive. Educating the local communities (from school children to farmers) is key to the success of the programme. Tourism is seen as the generator of sustainable change. It was interesting to hear that their Slovenia Green Platinum Scheme was inspired by the Green Tourism Scheme in Scotland. The Triglav National Park and more particularly Bohinj have now taken it a step further by creating a Triglav Quality Mark and a specific Bohinj brand .
Seona Anderson
Seona Anderson
52 visits

Slovenia Bohinj Wildflower Festival Story Map Report

The Wildflower Festival provided a way to encourage locals to keep the meadows uncut for longer periods of time, reduce pressures on the local communities by offering a tourism package that moves away from ‘lake, sun, beer’ model, outside of the peak season. It futher, spotlighted the cultural/social dimensions of nature, which is something I’ve been wanting to build more experience in as it is an important aspect of my current role, helping to develop an ecosystem health approach to protected area monitoring, which involves incorporating society and people into measuring the health of a given ecosystem.
Lana Blakely
430 visits

Wetland & Coastal Management in the Odra Delta – a model for Mersehead?

It was a great opportunity to be able to spend a week looking at the various types of parks and reserves in the Odra Delta and seeing the benefits and challenges of each. I think we were all blown away by how rich and diverse the wildlife and landscapes are, not just within the protected areas, but in the general landscape of the region as a whole. The main issues facing protected areas and wildlife in general in Poland seems to be a familiar one, lack of funding, staffing and awareness, which is all too familiar a problem in the UK as well. Due to Poland’s history, many people do not feel a connection to the land and so one of the results is that volunteering is nearly non-existant, which is a shame as this could be a rich source of help that is currently unavailable. It will also be interesting to see how the reserves will cope with climate change; increased pressure from predation and invasive species is tied in to this (as seen at Ujscie Warty NP) and subsequently pressure on staff time and funding for projects to deal with this. Hopefully the diversity of the landscapes means […]
Amee Hood
615 visits

Latvia Report 2019 (and Species List)

A group report covering a range of perspectives and topics from the NET Latvia course 2019. Although a trip focused on understanding the management of nature conservation in Latvia our hosts made sure we received a healthy dose of cultural history to compliment and broaden our understanding of Latvia and its people.
Lucy Elliff
111 visits

LATVIA: A CULTURAL JOURNEY NOT JUST A NATURAL ONE!

From the wetlands of Kemeri National Park through to the wooded sand stone valley of Gauja National Park the visiting tourist cannot fail to be impressed by the abundance of information signs, play areas, picnic spots, fire pits, boarded walks and walking trails which manage to make you feel welcome without compromising on the natural beauty of the landscape. I think all in the group would agree that we were excited about the accessibility of Latvia to a tourist with return trips already being mapped out. Nothing demonstrates this tourism infrastructure more than the Latvian Nature app, freely available and translated into English it enables you to maximise your visit to Latvia from the comfort of your pocket.
Richard Cooper
646 visits

ĶEMERI NATIONAL PARK – BOGS, WETLANDS, AND RE-MEANDERINGS

An account of the history and restoration works undertaken of one of Latvia’s major peat bogs – and the restoration of an adjoining river and associate flood plains.
Duncan Bruce
237 visits

Forestry in Latvia

In terms of organisational structure there are strong similarities to Scotland. The Ministry of Agriculture (MOA) develops policy. The State Forest Service sits within the MOA and enforces legislation across the industry whilst providing support and issuing licences/permits for all forests regardless of ownership. Finally, the Latvia State Forests Joint Stock Company operates as a commercial entity and manages all state owned forests. However as Normunds went into more detail and as we visited more forests throughout the week it became clear that organisational structure was where any similarities to forestry in Scotland ended. In terms of forest cover, ownership and management Scotland and Latvia could hardly be more different. It was fascinating to spend time in a country with such a different approach, where forestry seems to be winning out over intensive tree farming. Since being back at work I’ve been looking at my sites differently, wondering how much of what I saw could work here and daydreaming of Wolf , Moose, Lynx and Bear…. Paldies Latvia!

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