Contribution short abstract:

Faced with fungal pathogens in the pasture soils, livestock farmers in Spain re-envision the dehesa woodland as a landscape in which humans and nonhumans alike participate. While some species have found refuge again, others have been endowed with the questionable role of landscape conservationists.

Contribution long abstract:

The Spanish dehesa woodlands are traditional livestock pastures covered with numerous oak trees. Along with its agricultural importance, the dehesa has a high ecological value, not least for the conservation of endangered species such as the Iberian lynx and the griffon vulture. In the last 30 years, the tree disease Seca has become rampant and destroyed large areas of dehesa, threatening the livelihood of livestock farmers in the region. The Seca is caused by a soil-borne pathogen, the infestation with which ultimately leads to the death of the infected tree. Its spread is facilitated by soil compaction due to deficient livestock management. As farmers turn to Holistic Management to restore and preserve healthy soils, they re-envision the dehesa as a landscape that is constituted by humans and nonhumans alike. In other words, farmers open their eyes to the comprehensive soil community (Puig de la Bellacasa 2015) whose members provide the basis for the dehesa and its participants to flourish. Acknowledging the agency and key role of other-than-human beings in the conservation and commoning of the dehesa qualifies its long-vaunted anthropogenic origin. At the same time, the implementation of Holistic Management has ambivalent implications for nonhumans encapsulated in the contrast between feral species that are subject to conservation measures, and domestic animals and other nonhuman beings involved in the regeneration of the soil: Valued mainly because of their metabolic work in and above the ground, they are sidelined as resources without being given an equal share in the dehesa’s commoning.