An age-old strategy has been revived to tackle the devastating effects of drought and heatwaves
Swapping sirens for bells and equipped with voracious appetites, Barcelona’s newest firefighting recruits began delicately picking past hikers and cyclists in the city’s largest public park earlier this year. The four-legged brigade – made up of 290 sheep and goats – had just one task: to munch on as much vegetation as possible.
Their arrival turned Barcelona into one of the latest places to embrace an age-old strategy that’s being revived as officials around the world face off against aThe idea is simple: wildfire-prone areas are handed over to grazing animals, who chomp and trample over dry vegetation that could otherwise accumulate as fuel for fires.
It’s a nod to how wildfires were warded off in the past. “We’re not inventing anything new here,” said Guillem Canaleta of the Pau Costa Foundation, a Catalan non-profit that has been implementing the strategy since 2016 in the province of Girona, near Barcelona. “What we’re doing is recovering something that already existed and that was disappearing.”8,000 hectare green space
perched over the city and which sees an average of 50 fires a year, said Eloi Badia, the Barcelona city councillor for climate emergency and ecological transition. Usually the fires are swiftly put out. “It is not lost on anybody that if one day there was to be a major fire, it would have a big impact,” he said. “It’s a very urban park, surrounded by densely packed municipalities.”
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