Paper short abstract:

The pastures of transhumant herders in the South of France are mostly protected natural areas. Their managers, however, testify to different objectives, sometimes considered contradictory. Is there, even through a positive mediation of anthropology, the possibility of overcoming these divergences?

Paper long abstract:

Like almost all pastoral herders who own only their animals, transhumant people in Western countries rent their pastures. The majority of them and almost all in the mountains are living and working in natural protected areas (parks, nature reserves, protection zones, firewalls ...). This contributes to the maintenance of biodiversity, fire prevention and landscape safeguard. Thus, their presence, even under conditions, is conceived as necessary, but their positive role on the ground is not fully recognized. Somehow this new representation of their activities involve them in the management of these protected areas and makes them having interlocutions with their scientific bodies. Nonetheless in the application to agro-environmental measures and calls, languages and visions differ on both sides, often to the point of incomprehension and, sometimes, conflict. What are the reasons? Under what conditions are the objectives and interests of the two parties reconcilable? And to what changes do you agree, from one side to the other, to reach the agreement and contribute significantly to the current ecological transition (climate change, agro-ecology )?

From some situations observed in the South of France, this paper will try to see what are, for the benefit of all, the possibilities of a positive evolution of the transhumant sheep farming. We explicitly based on the Philippe Descola's and Arturo Escobar's works to bring out the necessities of the multiple visions in the collective pursuit of the goal of "buen vivir".