Pastoral Husbandry in Ariège: Animal Vulnerability on Rangelands, Adaptations to Accompaniment Measures of the Brown Bear (Ursus artos) Reintroduction and Conservation Plan in French Pyrenees 2006-2009 and Farming System evolutions

1.1.2 Role and objectives of the stocking system

1.1.2.1 Some definitions

Pastoralism, the use of extensive grazing in rangelands for livestock production, is one of the key production systems in the world's inhospitable lands (Lasseur and Garde, 2007). It is a quite original stocking system that exists only by a close relationship and respect between people, land and herds. It is also closely dependent on climatic variations. It represents an irreplaceable form, thrifty in fossil energy, for the development and management of natural milieu. According to FAO (2002), pastoralism is not a relic, but a modern activity that takes place in a context of current economies. It has a socioeconomic function while maintaining a form of activity in difficult regions and contributing to productions. A rangeland is first a place where the herd can move relatively freely, even without any constraint other than the distance required to drink (animals can be totally free inside a large sector, pens or not).

Is considered as pastoral (according to statistic definition of farm), a farm using collective pasturelands (generally equivalent to transhumance and utilisation of MSP); if not, animal density is less than 2 (sum of LLU/ha UAA^4(*)), and the portion of Always with Grass Area (AGA) less productive should reach 50% of UAA, and farm will have one of the following trends: breastfeeding or dairy cow, or the two, sheep and goats or multicropping-husbandry or intensive cultivation-grazing livestock (Eychenne, 2003b and 2006).

Biological diversity means the variability among living organisms from all sources including, inter alia, terrestrial, marine and other aquatic ecosystems and the ecological complexes of which they are part; this includes diversity within species, between species and of ecosystems.» (Convention on Biological Diversity «CBD»). It is known that there are limited data on spatial distribution on biodiversity, limited resources and time to acquire sufficient data. Thus, it is necessary to make priorities with the data available or with easy acquirable data. So, different surrogates for biodiversity have been used/proposed to provide a short-cut for the identification of important areas for conservation of biodiversity^5(*).

Ecosystem: Concept defined by Tansley in 1935, for him it must "take into account biotic factors and particularly human". A grazing activity can destroy an ecosystem, but it favours in the same time the emergence of a new ecosystem (grazed ecosystem), which most often be maintained by human intervention against harmful plants or various predators. Of course, unlike Tansley, the ecosystem has often been caught in a spirit strictly naturalist (Hubert, 2002 & 2004) actually, the ecosystem should be seen by a reading topocentric and non-geometric.

1.1.2.2 Role and objectives of pastoralism

Stock farming contributes to territories' dynamics by maintaining through grazing, opened environment integrated in a mosaic, associating cultivated and forest areas. This contribution must be conciliated with a dynamics of stock farms allowing this activity to maintain its coherences, and his sustainability as stocking system (Lasseur and Garde, 2007). The rangelands exploited by pastoralists often cannot be used by conventional agriculture. These lands offer few other options than migrating husbandry for their efficient and sustainable utilisation. Nonetheless, throughout much of its long history, its reputation has been unflattering, its practitioners marginalised by sedentary cultivators and urban dwellers (Roger Blench, 2001). In some sectors of the Ariège's mountain zone, this is the unique way to valorise land.

Migrating husbandry leans on a group of variable itineraries, according to the year, as the result of spatial and temporal distribution of diversified and most often spontaneous forage resources. Production activity is managed by the interaction between, Man, herd and territory; its complexity is the result of the existence and interaction of different goals between the manager (stock breeder, herdsman), vegetation and animals (Landais and Balent, 1995; Hubert and al., 1993). Transhumance in Ariège involves relocation of livestock (cows, sheep, and horses) to high mountains for summer months, not only because farms in the lowland are too small to support the herd all year round, but, also to manure plots, to maintain fences, to constitute fodder stocks, to allow sanitary process of plots and pens or cowsheds, and finally, to enable stock breeder to «rest». Their mountain period starts in late May and early June, and ends in early October. Until the 1970s transhumance concerned mainly dairy cows, and cheese-making was important activity. In some regions up until this century, nearly all family members decamped to higher mountains with their cows, living in rudimentary cabins made with stones. That system, which evolved during the middle age, lasted into the 20th century, but broke down under pressure from industrialization with concomitant depopulation of countryside (B. Besche-Commenge, 2008; Fédération pastorale de l'Ariège, 2007). Many authors have mentioned the importance of pastoralism in the nature conservation, production of specific biodiversity spaces, maintenance of herbaceous environment and opened landscapes (aesthetic), prevention of natural hazards, management of soil and effluents, cultural patrimony preservation, rural migration limitation, multifunctionality and positive externalities (Castro & al., 2004; Huyghe and Lemaire, 2002; Hervieu, 2002; Lasseur and Garde, 2007; Janet C., 2007; Hubert, 2002; Léger 1999).

* ⁴ Useful Agricultural Area

* ⁵ Larsen and Rahbek, 2007)