FLYING FLOCK

Every day I stare at the vast for­est with two fun­da­men­tal thoughts: the ge­nius of na­ture and how com­bustible it all is. The sec­ond has come to dom­i­nate.

I have been in des­per­ate need for more seeds of hope, rea­sons to smile, and one close to home has done just that. It first needs to be put into con­text though.

Your way of life and the fu­ture of the coun­try de­pend on the in­spi­ra­tion of it. Things are that se­ri­ous.

The eco weave of wood­land – more than 50 per cent of beau­ti­ful Cat­alo­nia – is more vul­ner­a­ble than ever to fire. We evolved from it and now all that we take for granted and rely on are at risk of being con­sumed. Imag­ine that. We need to give the con­se­quences of cli­mate change far more at­ten­tion.

Away from our urban ob­ses­sions, our he­do­nism in the mod­ern, wired world, com­bined with our species’ gross ig­no­rance about¨ – and deemed ir­rel­e­vance of – the nat­ural world, some wise and won­der­ful peo­ple are doing vital work.

If you have not heard of Ra­mats de Foc you need to. For nearly a decade here in Cat­alo­nia this co­or­di­nated ef­fort is to sus­tain bio­di­ver­sity and the local economies, with shep­herds at the fore­front. “Fire Flocks” graze in strate­gic areas de­fined by the GRAF (Fire­fight­ers of the Gen­er­al­i­tat of Cat­alo­nia) among other agents. These areas are mapped, and if pos­si­ble, a flock will be sent where it is con­sid­ered nec­es­sary to carry out sus­tain­able for­est man­age­ment, cut­ting fire risk and pro­vid­ing ac­cess for emer­gency ser­vices.

They also help main­tain the rural econ­omy “keep­ing a cul­tural, so­cial and knowl­edge her­itage”.

So sup­port the ini­tia­tive - buy prod­ucts with the Ra­mats de Foc label, from busi­nesses sup­port­ing the ini­tia­tive.

I am proud of The Pri­o­rat for a host of rea­sons and here is an­other. Under the Ra­mats de Foc um­brella the coun­cil may (fin­gers crossed) take fire pre­ven­tion a stage fur­ther in a year-long trial and at the same time pro­vide glo­ri­ous in­spi­ra­tion. Some­one we know, a horse­woman of renown who has lived here all her life and whose vo­ca­tion has been an­i­mals, wants to use sheep, goats and horses for for­est man­age­ment, fit and well older an­i­mals that would oth­er­wise face the chop. The flock would graze, the horses (a first) would pull felled trees.

Such for­est man­age­ment is not the whole an­swer, but it pro­vides im­pe­tus, sup­port, un­der­stand­ing and, hope­fully, a sus­tain­able fu­ture for the forests and rural com­mu­ni­ties. And it opens a path­way we should all fol­low.

* Core to the pro­ject has been the Barcelona-based Pau Costa Foun­da­tion, a global non-profit or­gan­i­sa­tion fo­cused on fire man­age­ment and pre­ven­tion.