Twenty years after Aragon adopted its own law to protect and organize its livestock ranges, the assessment drawn up by environmental organizations and a good part of the parliamentary groups is overwhelming: the majority of historic livestock farms remain unclassified, without demarcation and without effective protection on the ground. Although they are an asset in the public domain and an essential heritage for extensive livestock farming, biodiversity and the historical memory of the territory, public policies regarding livestock trails remain marginal and fragmentary.
Law 10/2005, of November 11, on livestock routes in Aragon recognized these traditional routes as part of the community network of livestock routes and established the obligation to defend, conserve and improve them. Two decades later, many of the instruments provided for in the standard are barely used. The result is a network of thousands of kilometers of degraded, occupied or practically disappeared livestock paths, particularly in rural areas subject to abandonment or strong pressure from incompatible uses.
The latest call for attention came from the State Confederation of Ecologists in Action, which, with the participation of dozens of groups from all over the country, approved at the beginning of December, during its assembly held in Vigo, a resolution in which it demands that the Government of Aragon create its own technical service specialized in livestock trails, distinct from the current Forest Management Service and equipped with sufficient human and material resources. The organization considers that the current mission has contributed to relegating this infrastructure compared to other administrative priorities.
The environmental statement is supported by the assessment carried out on the occasion of the 20th anniversary of the Aragonese law, the results of which are described as “very worrying”. According to data collected by Ecologistas en Acción Aragón, around 300 Aragonese municipalities, or almost 40% of the total, are still waiting to officially classify their livestock trails, a basic procedure that allows them to recognize their route and their public character. At the current rate, they denounce, the progression is only eight municipalities per legislature, which prolongs a situation of legal insecurity for decades.
Even more serious is the situation with demarcation and marking, the procedures that set the physical boundaries of roads and protect them against occupation or usurpation. Only around 3% of already classified roads have been demarcated and marked since the law came into force. In practice, this means that the vast majority of cabañeras do not have a clear demarcation of the land, which facilitates their gradual invasion by crops, fences, infrastructure or buildings.
The 2005 law also incorporated the figure of Livestock Routes of Special Interest, designed for sections with unique environmental, cultural or strategic value. However, in twenty years the Government of Aragon has not declared a single counter in this category, even though the standard itself designs it as a tool to prioritize the protection and recovery of the most valuable routes. For Ecologistas en Acción, this inaction reflects the absence of a specific and planned policy.
Another indicator of institutional abandonment is the functioning of the Aragonese Council of Livestock Routes, the consultative and participatory body provided for by law. Since its creation, it has only been invoked once, in 2015. The environmental organization also denounces an authorization policy which empties the legal protection of its content: 97.4% of requests for temporary occupation of livestock trails are authorized, many of which for uses that do not meet the exceptional and temporary nature required by the regulations. Added to this, as they denounce, is the non-compliance with the legal obligation to allocate revenue from sanctions, occupations and exploitations to the conservation and improvement of the roads themselves.
This diagnosis was reflected directly in the Aragonese Parliament before its dissolution due to the electoral call of February 8. On December 1, the Commission of Agriculture, Livestock and Food of the Cortes of Aragon approved a proposal presented by the Chunta Aragonesista (CHA) which proposes to decisively reactivate public policy on livestock routes. The initiative was carried out with the support of Vox and Aragón-Teruel Existen and with the abstention of the PP and PSOE.
CHA spokesperson José Luis Soro defended cabañeras as “infrastructure that constitutes an essential part of our identity” and recalled that they constitute “a public livestock transport system that has served over time to articulate biodiversity.” Soro denounced the current abandonment of this collective heritage and opted for a comprehensive plan that includes waiting for classification and demarcation, the creation of a specialized service within the Government of Aragon and the reinvestment of sanctions revenues in its maintenance and improvement.
During the parliamentary debate, the different groups agreed on the general diagnosis, while showing nuances on the solutions. From the Popular Party, José María Giménez highlighted the practical difficulties of the proposal and highlighted the reduction of traditional transhumance and the evolution of the livestock model. The popular deputy recalled that the Department of the Environment has invested more than a million euros in the current legislature in actions related to livestock routes, and warned of the technical and legal complexity of certain demarcation processes.
The socialist Ángel Peralta highlighted the physical deterioration of many cabañeras, some of which “ceased to be cattle paths and became highways or paved roads.” The PSOE deputy proposed opening a specific budgetary channel, managed by town halls, to improve its situation and avoid its definitive disappearance. From Vox, Santiago Morón linked the conservation of cattle trails to the prevention of forest fires, acting as open corridors and facilitating access to the territory. For her part, Pilar Buj, from Exist Aragon-Teruel, was particularly critical of the execution of the law and demanded that the regional government not delegate to municipalities a responsibility that she considers structural, given that many of them lack sufficient means.
The regulations in force in Aragon define livestock routes as the traditional routes through which livestock traffic circulates or has passed and recognizes them as public property. The law establishes detailed procedures for classification, demarcation and marking and highlights its animal, environmental, cultural and territorial function. The Government of Aragon itself includes these principles in its official portal on livestock routes, which highlights their role as ecological corridors and basic elements of the rural environment. However, the distance between the legal framework and its practical application remains very large.
For those who still work in extensive livestock farming, the consequences of this administrative inaction are daily. Miguel Ángel Bernués, a sheep farmer in the Pre-Pyrenees of Huesca, explains that the lack of demarcation generates constant conflicts. “If a cabin is not cleared on the land, someone occupies it little by little. One year, a piece is plowed, another a fence is erected, and in the end the road disappears,” he says. Although he acknowledges that long-term transhumance has declined, he insists that roads remain necessary for the movement of livestock between terms and grazing areas. “When we can’t use the cabin, we end up taking the road with the animals, with the danger that entails.”
Bernués agrees with environmentalists and parliamentary groups that the problem is not only regulatory, but also management. “The law is well written, but we need people who are dedicated to it, who go out into the field, who demarcate, mark and maintain. Otherwise, the cabañeras are lost even if they are public,” he says.
Ecologists in Action has already officially transferred to the Minister of Environment and Tourism the agreement adopted at its confederal assembly and the request to create its own breeding trail service with the aim of decisively advancing its protection and recovery.
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