Livestock routes: heritage of the past for the future

If you are a lover of the countryside, surely you have ever come across a sign of the bedside photograph.

It is a milestone or landmark of a livestock route (VP), which is established by the regional administration of the Autonomous Community in question to determine the limits of these roads and permanently mark them on the ground.

Livestock roads are assets in the public domain of the Autonomous Communities. They have their origin in the early dawn of human history, when man becomes sedentary and has the need to move herds for food, looking for the right places to satisfy it. These movements, which took on a periodic basis following fixed itineraries, formed a wide network of pastoral roads that over time became the network of livestock routes.

Livestock road currently classified as Cañada Real. Alignment of blocks on the right bank of La Cañada (marked with a beacon in the image), in a western-east direction, possibly forming part of the longitudinal strip that delimited a Roman road in Roman Hispania.

There are many countries in which transhumant livestock practices were developed, but only in our country has a specially protected public heritage destined for this use been configured since ancient times; and only in our country, that heritage, permanently threatened by multiple and changing factors, has survived to the present day.

The process of regulating livestock routes is linked in its origins to the appearance and development of the Mesta. Thus, this network of roads acquired its own nature in our country under the reign of Alfonso X “The Wise”, with the creation of the “Honored Council of the Mesta”, acquiring its maximum splendor in the 15th, 16th and 17th centuries.

Currently, the regulations at the national level that establish the legal framework for livestock routes are the Law 3/1995, of 23 March, on Livestock Roads; in our region, it is the Law 9/2003, of March 20, on Livestock Roads of Castilla-La Mancha.

Indistinctly, one or the other, they have established a new concept of livestock routes, recognizing, in addition to their traditional service to livestock, their functional diversity and admitting new uses for them, such as agrarian, recreational, ecological and historical-cultural.

Fortunately, the legal concept of livestock routes has changed. Livestock routes are not exclusively a historical heritage; they are not only a memory or testimony of the past, but new functions or services have been legally recognized that open up new possibilities for conservation and use.

Livestock heritage is a legacy that we have received from the past and that we must conserve, manage and transmit to future generations. It is in our power to contribute to the sustainable conservation of these roads, in order to make their preservation possible.

Current state of a livestock route and a milestone of dislocation.

If you are interested, some links to expand this information are available at:

Alenza, J.F. (2013). Livestock roads: a miraculous heritage waiting for sustainable management. Ambienta No. 104 (September 2013) (pp. 74-89).