After the many sessions in Glasgow at the United Nations COP26 during October and November, the promises made and actions foretold, plans must turn into policy and action. The looming challenge exists of mobilizing capital to fund climate-related infrastructure now and in the future.

To finance the low-carbon energy transition to adapt to climate change risks, the International Energy Agency and other global watchdogs project that massive amounts of capital will be required. The Glasgow Financial Alliance for Net Zero, formed pre-COP26, estimates that $125 trillion will be needed to close the 1.5- degree scenario gap to the year 2050, also known as net zero. Specifically, from 2021 to 2025, $2.5 trillion is needed annually and $4.5 trillion from 2026 to 2050, over four times more than that of today. ^[i]

At the COP26, the Glasgow Alliance, financiers with assets of $130 trillion under their purview, plan to transition their portfolios to net zero by 2050, an enormous undertaking.^[ii] Some large players have admitted they are not sure how to get there. That’s the honest truth. In their roadmap scenario of the opportunity set in climate-related and sustainability financing the idea of blended finance is posed for infrastructure projects that are typically financed by the public sector; blended finance, they suggest uses public monies to leverage private sector capital and is highly suited to developing country needs where the risk profile is higher. In terms of infrastructure funds, the Alliance estimates $972 billion is the amount needed or potential they could support to reach net zero goals, much of it focused on electricity infrastructure.^[iii] Developing countries still need all other forms of infrastructure for water, waste, transportation and the like. Many of the net-zero roadmaps are more geared to industry sectors touching the low-carbon energy space. 

Off the sidelines

The outsized amounts of capital requirements being put forth begs the question: Who will pay for this global low-carbon campaign and the interconnected sustainable development goals? The Glasgow Alliance believes 70% of the funding for net zero can come from the private sector. While many types of financiers have obvious roles to play in theory, in practice we need an approach that will motivate and incentivize private capital to come off of the bench. 

One approach which captures the need for a shared financing approach is through capital markets-based public-private partnerships (PPPs). Simply put, since large sums of capital will be required, a project(s) approach based on the financial feasibility that capital market discipline would bring offers a path forward. We cannot afford to waste resources and time. The urgency communicated by scientists about the need to reduce emissions sooner than later means that financing such an energy transition has to be efficient, matching capital and timings optimally. 

Global capital markets offer a viable source of diverse funds, promote better governance, and can bring efficiency and transparency to the infrastructure financing challenge. The experiences to date with privatizations and securitizations suggest that a “market finance” approach versus traditional PPPs with “contract finance,” can create immediate private ownership of public-investment projects among diverse groups of investors. It can ultimately lead to more efficient and successful infrastructure development. Market-based financing solutions can help bring more rational economic decision making to infrastructure projects and the “real” economy. Projects should be founded on cost-benefit analysis for which public and private sector actors have an important oversight role. 

A role for markets

The financing of projects should be guided by global capital markets’ invisible hand to determine the economic value of an infrastructure project and provide the necessary resources for construction, operations, and maintenance. In this truer form of public-private partnership, government focuses on identifying and facilitating the project and then allows the private sector to create an efficient, sustainable public-works asset that offers a financial reward to risk-takers and its owners. When contractors and the trades lead project development, as with typical public sector-led infrastructure projects versus investors, their incentives often override performance and cost efficiency. 

Recent research has shown that public institutional investors in infrastructure that are Principles for Responsible Investment (PRI) signatories underperform private infrastructure investors. This rests partly on the fact that they invest in marginal deals.^[iv] For any new large-scale infrastructure project, securitizations specific to the project or initial public offerings of project securities can be designed with financial innovations. This would create diversification, liquidity, and mitigate many of the problems that accompany existing approaches in financing infrastructure. Importantly, it would foster transparency. 

Financial innovations in the securities offering can serve as both a deterrent and an incentive. For example, including event-risk provisions in project bonds can deter politicians’ attempts to make undesirable policy changes, fostering a more investment-friendly environment that developing countries often seek. Proper transparent management will bring its own reward through enhanced project value for the community and economy at large. In the end, the explicit costs of debt financing for infrastructure would be lower. Of great consequence, the invisible hand of capital markets may prove more capable in setting infrastructure project agendas which span varied administrations and political agendas. 

This approach would bring true public-private sector participation in sustainable development goals. It would ensure ample funding, strong interest, and awareness of a project on a global scale. Managerial incentives could be more aligned with productivity, thus reducing the widespread problems of cost overruns and inefficiency. Government—at central, state, and local levels—could be allocated project securities to achieve real public-private ownership. 

Market-based PPPs can address investor reluctance due to political risk and profitability concerns, bring projects online more quickly, and attract long-term institutional investors. This financing approach can be applied to groups or consortia of new smaller-scale projects as well. An IPO that includes an entire value chain from production to final consumer in the carbon capture space is an example. A sustainable complex of energy-related projects focused on renewable biofuels is a possibility, or a large-scale energy system specific to a geography or special situation would be a candidate. 

The transformational sustainable mission suggested by net-zero commitments of various global stakeholders, needs a novel approach, based on existing financial market structures. To rise to this 21^st century decarbonization challenge, a market-based public-private partnership has the capacity to complement sustainable development with sustainable finance. 

Dr. Andrew Chen is Distinguished Finance Professor Emeritus, Cox School of Business, Southern Methodist University and Jennifer Warren is principal of Concept Elemental, a sustainable resources consultancy and energy writer.

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^[i] https://www.gfanzero.com/netzerofinancing/

^[ii] https://www.wsj.com/articles/financial-system-makes-big-promises-on-climate-change-at-cop26-summit-11635897675

^[iii] https://www.gfanzero.com/netzerofinancing/

^[iv] https://www.unpri.org/pri-blog/the-underperformance-of-public-institutional-investors-in-infrastructure/8625.article

To reduce waste and protect ecosystems, The Netherlands started banning many disposable plastics in summer 2021. The ban will include plastic cutlery, cotton swabs, straws, cups, and bottles. It’s the latest in the country’s string of reforms to cut back on waste.

Climate change is a global modification of the climate over a long period of time (from decades to millions of years), and these changes can occur regionally and globally. By climate change, we mean the increase in temperature from the middle of the 20th century to the present day. The cause, human or other, is an argument meant to distract us from solving this threat to our species.  

In 2016, The Netherlands banned free plastic bags, and citizens are charged for waste disposal while recycling is free. So, the more a household recycles, the lower its waste bill. From 2021, the EU will also ban a range of single-use plastic items, joining an increasing number of places making new laws to tackle plastic pollution. Use of plastic around the world has increased 20-fold in the last 50 years.

Eight million tons of plastic contaminate marine ecosystems every year, and according to the UN Environment Programme, plastic production accounts for 6% of the world’s global oil consumption and produces one percent of global carbon emissions. What does your country do to fight plastic waste?

A new digital Global Innovation Hub has been initiated by UN Climate Change to significantly boost the effectiveness and scale of climate change and sustainability innovation as a driver of more ambitious climate action.

To achieve this, the hub will have new approaches to facilitate the development and deployment of transformative and innovative climate solutions.

The hub promotes a “moonshot approach” which will assist practitioners to base climate action pledges and commitments on what science says is needed, as opposed to what is perceived as possible with current solutions and technologies.

In its recent Working Group 1 report, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) estimates that limiting global average temperature increases to 1.5C requires a reduction of CO2 emissions of 45% in 2030. Yet current emission reduction pledges fall far short. Unless urgent action is taken, the current level of ambition is likely to put the world on course for a 2.7C average temperature increase and ever-increasing extreme weather events.

Significantly greater ambition is thus required to keep the 1.5C goal within reach. Current pledges often fall short because they are based on the perceptions of what can be achieved in the context of current climate solutions and technologies.

The hub aims to support the translation of commitments and pledges into demand for climate and sustainability solutions that will drive the identification or development of innovative responses and their effective implementation. Innovative responses beyond current solutions mean that pledges and commitments can become significantly more ambitious.

The hub is a digital platform that hosts (i) databases of demand for solutions as well as solutions, (ii) tools to determine the impact of climate action and (iii) a space to facilitate the financing of climate solutions.

The hub sets the agenda for an expanded space of climate innovation for all practitioners. It showcases people’s everyday needs, such as mobility, access to goods and services, and social connection. The hub then fosters the development of innovative climate-friendly responses beyond any status-quo solutions such as cars or conventional power and, importantly, without focusing on one single solution in isolation.

For example, instead of focusing only on the development of EV cars, the hub will promote climate innovations that challenge the need for a car in the first place. It will explore options for the design of compact and complete cities connected with low carbon public transportation that will reduce the need for mobility.

It will even go one step further and challenge mobility as a need to have access to products and services. For example, it will develop solutions that replace trips to get a product or a service the same way online shopping replaced trips to shops.

The solutions offered by the platform are integrated with each other to form a cluster of solutions that can include technologies, policies and regulations, business models, and financing instruments that reflect a holistic approach.

Because the development of a solution is demand-driven and the solutions are integrated to form a cluster, the hub will not stockpile underdeveloped inventions as is often the case with innovation platforms.    

The Global Innovation Hub will have world-class standards in line with the Paris Agreement goals for impact assessment of climate change solutions.

This is New Delhi, India, population 22 million. The city has a population density of 30,000 people per square mile.

India is the world’s most populous democratic country with a population of 1.4 billion inhabitants and according to the World Health Organization Delhi is the fourth most polluted city in the world in terms of suspended particulate matter. The growing pollution is responsible for increasing health problems, and the deteriorating environment is the result of population pressure and haphazard growth.

There are now more than 7,800,000,000 people on planet Earth.

It took until the early 1800s for the world population to reach one billion. Now we add a billion every 12-15 years.

Population is a dynamic field. There have been significant changes in birth rates and the population trajectories of countries and continents in recent years. Global population is still growing by more than 80 million a year, however, and is most likely to continue growing for the rest of this century unless we take action.

Photo courtesy of Global Population Speak Out. PopulationSpeakOut.org

Brazilian ranchers traditionally clear land to raise animals in large pasture areas. When using feedlots to fatten animals before slaughter, farmers do in 90 days what would take them a year in natural pastures.

Brazil is the world’s largest beef exporter, exporting one-fifth of its total production, and the sector is a major driver of deforestation.

Extensive cattle ranching is the number one culprit of deforestation in virtually every Amazon country, and it accounts for 80% of current deforestation (Nepstad et al. 2008). Alone, the deforestation caused by cattle ranching is responsible for the release of 340 million tons of carbon to the atmosphere every year, equivalent to 3.4% of current global emissions. Beyond forest conversion, cattle pastures increase the risk of fire and are a significant degrader of riparian and aquatic ecosystems, causing soil erosion, river siltation and contamination with organic matter. Trends indicate that livestock production is expanding in the Amazon.

Brazil has 88% of the Amazon herd, followed by Peru and Bolivia. While grazing densities vary among livestock production systems and countries, extensive, low productivity, systems with less thanone animal unit per hectare of pasture are the dominant form of cattle ranching in the Amazon.

Photo: Peter Beltra  / courtesy of Global Population Speak Out. PopulationSpeakOut.org

The images below show projected future sea levels at various locations around the world due to human-caused global warming under two different scenarios. Climate and energy choices in the coming few decades could set the destination, but the timing of rise is more difficult to project: these sea levels may take hundreds of years to be fully realized.

Sports company PUMA has introduced a new shoebox design which will save 2800 tonnes of cardboard every year, as part of its sustainability strategy to make a positive environmental impact across its product range.

The new shoeboxes, which have been rolled out in 2021, are just one element of PUMA’s commitment to make its retail supplies more sustainable. By 2023, the company will also no longer use plastic bags in its stores and will also switch other retail supplies, such as hangers and shoe trees, to more sustainable alternatives.

“If we consider that it takes about 12 trees to make a tonne of cardboard, we are saving 33,600 trees every year. That is more than the number of trees in Central Park in New York,” said Stefan Seidel, Head of Corporate Sustainability at PUMA. “Such initiatives, which are part of our 10FOR25 Sustainability Strategy, help us make a positive impact at scale.”

The new shoeboxes are just as sturdy as their predecessors and are made of more than 95 % recycled cardboard.

Earlier this year, PUMA announced a partnership with not-for-profit environmental organization Canopy and said it would source all of its cardboard and paper packaging from recycled or certified sources to ensure they are not derived from the world’s most integral forests.

PUMA’s 10FOR25 targets cover a wide range of sustainability topics including Climate Action, Human Rights, Circularity as well as Plastics and the Ocean. The targets are aligned with the United Nations Sustainable development goals and ensure that PUMA works on making its core business more sustainable.

Temperatures are rising, sea levels are rising, and carbon emissions are at astronomical levels. The building design and construction industry account for 40% of global carbon emissions, and over a quarter of those emissions are Embodied Carbon related.

As sustainability consultants, our project managers at Vertical Group are hyper-aware that this is a colossal impact and an enormous window of opportunity for building industry improvement. Thankfully, because the burden of responsibility does not fall onto one individual building sector, each person in the Architecture, Engineering, and Construction (AEC) community can significantly impact carbon emissions.

Break it Down: What’s the Problem?

“Embodied carbon is the sum of all the greenhouse gas emissions (mostly carbon dioxide) resulting from the mining, harvesting, processing, manufacturing, transportation, and installation of building materials.” – American Institute of Architects (AIA)

Embodied Carbon is the precursor to Operational Carbon. Operational carbon emissions can be reduced over time with energy efficiency renovations; however, Embodied Carbon emissions are locked in as soon as the building is built. 

It takes about 30 years to offset the embodied carbon impacts of a typical new construction building.

Embed Sustainability Early in the Project Design!

In the AEC industry, we have the exciting responsibility to select products and processes to reduce Embodied Carbon emissions before a building is turned over to the end-user (the operations team). Early collaboration reduces costs and coordination time and minimizes the risk of sustainability measures being value-engineered out of the project budget later. Therefore, it is highly recommended to hold a sustainability charrette as early as possible and invite all the key decision-makers, designers, and engineers to a round table discussion. At Vertical Group, we typically aim to include the owner/developer, sustainability consultant, architect, contractor, and engineers (mechanical, electrical, plumbing, structural, etc.).

Interested in learning more? At the Net Zero Conference on September 13-16th, there will be an educational session titled, “How Low Can You Go? The Embodied Carbon Panel.” Where panelists (including myself!) will discuss Embodied Carbon strategies, challenges, best practices, and the responsibilities of each role in the process. Check out a sneak preview of our speakers and conversation below.

Net Zero Conference: Sneak Preview! 

When it comes to reducing Embodied Carbon, the Owner/Developer’s role is to communicate the project requirements, vision, and expectations to the team from the project’s inception. Jasmine Lomax of Kilroy Realty Corporation shares insight into setting carbon reduction goals, monitoring the supply chain, and transforming the market toward net-zero carbon buildings.

The Architect leads the project design team and is crucial in selecting the proper materials to achieve the project’s Embodied Carbon goals. Kjell Anderson of LMN Architects pushes the envelope on sustainability to get ahead of the curve of market costs and acquire products with Environmental Product Declarations (EPDs).

Structural Engineers recognize that the superstructure materials, such as concrete and steel, represent 20% or more of the annual global GHG emissions, partly due to the sheer quantity of materials required. Luke Lombardi of Thornton Tomasetti is an advocate of mass timber, carbon injected concrete, maximizing structural efficiency, and other Structural Engineering Institute SE 2050 goals. 

The Mechanical, Electrical, and Plumbing (MEP) Engineer focuses on the technical and control systems of the building. Zara Fahim and Erin McConahey of ARUP highlight that building systems should focus on MEP efficiency to reduce Operational Carbon Emissions and take ownership of Embodied Carbon emissions. To do this, it is essential to perform a whole-life carbon analysis, include refrigerants in Embodied Carbon calculations, and encourage vendors to provide EPDs.

The Contractor is the leader in managing costs, procurement, and quality. Jessie Buckmaster of Hathaway Dinwiddie shares insight into how their team uses the EC3 tool (the free Embodied Carbon in Construction Calculator) on projects to create a database and baseline. Embodied Carbon is included as a line item in the estimating process, which helps decision-making.

The Sustainability Consultant is the frontrunner to break down the silos on the team and create a free flow of information. I will be speaking about how consultants like Verdical Group orchestrate the carbon reduction strategy goals to develop the most sustainable project possible. Sustainability Consultants combat Embodied Carbon by leading integrated sustainability design charrettes, generating Life-Cycle Assessments, and managing verified third-party certifications for projects and products.

Yearn to Learn!

The pandemic has cornered us into our silos – working from home limiting interaction and the organic flow of conversation. Wouldn’t it be magnificent if we emerged from this era collectively combating Embodied Carbon emissions? Let’s collaborate and work toward the common goal of a Net Zero future!

Learn more about how to tackle Embodied Carbon emissions during this panel discussion and at the full Net Zero Conference, hosted September 13 – 16th with virtual and in-person outdoor options.

The forest fire stopped just before arriving at Nieves Fernández Vidueira’s farm, but it burned all day in the area surrounding Quintela do Pando in Galicia, northwestern Spain.

“I will never forget the terror that I felt,” Fernández said. “When we woke up we couldn’t even breathe, everything was covered with smoke, it seemed like night, chunks of scorched bark fell from the sky.”

Fernández, 59, is a shepherd and poet who says she will always remember Oct. 16, 2017, when all the neighbors went to the nearby village of Fradelo to help the firefighters. “The trees made a terrible noise and fell to the charred ground. I saw rabbits and roe deer escaping from the fire, people cried all around. Right now, I still cry when I remember it.”

During that time, Galicia experienced an unusual heat wave, as happened in other parts of the Iberian Peninsula. “Many hectares were destroyed during a day of flames and the fire stopped at an area of chestnut trees grazed by sheep, surrounding my field. Livestock are a fundamental part of forest fire prevention, by eating the grass in the undergrowth, and highly combustible lichens on the trees,” Fernández said.

That day, she composed a poem to express feelings of sadness and impotence after seeing the woods transformed into a dark desert.

Writing poetry under the centenary chestnut trees

Fernández became a shepherd at 19 when she was expecting her first son. She decided at the time to leave Madrid and come back to Quintela do Pando, where she grew up.

“In the past, practically only men worked as shepherds: a woman like me broke all the existing patterns. Then, if in the meantime sheep are grazing, you bring with you a knife and carve wood toys for your children [as I was used to] you break all the molds,” she explains.

It all started with the 18 sheep owned by her grandmother. Now she has 400 Galician sheep, or ovella galega, a breed classified as in danger of extinction, grazing among chestnut trees (Castanea sativa), oak (Quercus robur), elm (Ulmus spp.) and hazelnut (Corylus spp.). The sheep eat lichens and bushes such as tojo (or gorse, Ulex europaeus), brezo (heather, Erica ciliaris), and xesta (Scotch broom, Cytisus scoparius).

This is a kind of agricultural system called agroforestry because it’s done among trees, which cool the surroundings, provide habitat for biodiversity, and promote humidity that helps crops like hay and grains grow even in dry conditions. The trees in an agroforestry system also sequester carbon from the atmosphere to cool the atmosphere. In this case, since livestock graze between the trees, it’s also called silvopasture, which is an ancestral farming system typical of Galicia.

Fernández’s farm is self-sufficient, producing sustainable forage for its sheep and selling meat and chestnuts. Every evening as she brings the sheep to graze and sits under the old chestnut trees, Fernández also writes poetry; designs clothes made with lichens and leaves and inspired by the Celtic mythologies deeply rooted in this area; and carves sculptures from tree branches to portray life through the lens of nature. In her handicrafts, one also finds stories of the meigas, witches whom local folklore ascribe to these woods. Her work is exhibited in a tiny museum in the center of the village.

“Being a shepherd inspires me, makes me feel free, that I’m part of nature,” Fernández says.

Climate crisis fans the flames

As Fernández experienced in her village, silvopasture systems deliver key ecosystem services. “Livestock reduce the risk of forest fires, eliminating [the] biomass of bushes and lichens from the ground,” says María Rosa Mosquera-Losada, president of the European Agroforestry Federation (EURAF), who’s in charge of the Department of Crop Production at the University of Santiago de Compostela (USC). “Silvopasture systems also provide an important carbon sink service: shepherding increases soil sequestration” of carbon, she says.

In Galicia, researchers observed a significant change in summer days over recent decades. “In the region, as in Spain, temperatures have risen by 1.7° [Celsius, or 3° Fahrenheit] since 1970. They are having great oscillations, with warm periods, followed by cold ones,” explains Dominic Royé, physical geography researcher at USC.

Many variables influence this, as Royé explained in a paper published in 2020. “Climate variability leads to years with more or less forest fire activity due to more favorable conditions. We must understand that a drought followed by heat waves greatly increases the risk,” Royé says. “The easterly winds in Portugal and Galicia are dry and warm in summer, dramatically increasing the risk of forest fires, and a few fires could burn huge areas.”

How’s the weather? ‘It depends’

North of here, the winding road passes through rivers and villages with few inhabitants nestled in hills colored by the violet flowers of heather, known locally as brezo. News of the forest fires tearing through the U.S. West Coast dominate the radio bulletins on the car stereo: tales of flames worsened by climate variability, a global issue that is part of the climate crisis.

“Depende [it depends], it’s a word that represents part of our character,” Mosquera-Losada says. “As Galician people we are well-known [as] undecided. Right now, depende is also our attitude to climate variability. We have more summer days but you’ll never know how the weather will be: extremely cold, rainy or windy.”

Indeed, local shepherds have observed weather changing very much during recent decades. “Depende is a good answer to identify our weather,” says Javier González Méndez, 43, who works as a firefighter by day and as a shepherd in the evening, taking care of 45 rubia gallega cattle, a breed native to Galicia.

The youngest of seven siblings, Javier González became a fireman at 18, and is the only one of them still living in the village of Robledo de Domiz, here in the heart of Galicia.

After he sheds his firefighter uniform, he brings the cows to the Os Ancares mountains. Climbing up to 1,600 meters (5,250 feet), they graze in a silvopasture system with oak, birch (Betula pubescens), hazelnuts (Corylus avellana), holly (Ilex aquifolium), cherry (Prunus avium), teixo (or yew, Taxus baccata), and bushes such as uz branca (Erica arborea), xesta, and cardo (thistle, or Cirsium vulgare). There are also medicinal plants such as arnica (wolf’s bane, Arnica montana) and lemon balm (Melissa officinalis). These mountains are also the last redoubt of brown bears (Ursus arctos) in Galicia, which González reports meeting several times on the nearby peak.

If just one remains, who will take care of these woods?

“Rubia ven acá” — Blondie come here — González calls out to gather each of his cows, most of them a light brown or cinnamon color. He gives each of them a proper name, such as Rubia or Marella.

When they graze on the mountaintop, he follows them on his mobile phone, thanks to GPS chips in their collars. Over the years, he says, “I saw forest fires each time more intense, since there is less flock cleaning the mountains,” he explains, walking in an area that was razed to the ground by a forest fire. That occurred in October of 2017, when 2,000 hectares (nearly 5,000 acres) burned in a week. Oak and birch skeletons still remain as testimonies to the blaze.

“Before, we were 13 shepherds on this mountain,” González says. “Now I’m the only one on more than 100 hectares [250 acres].”

His flock does the work that’s needed more than ever because the forest fire season just began. Last year, 14,805 hectares (36,584 acres) burned in Galicia, more than in 2018 and 2019 combined, according to the latest governmental statistics.

Galicia has the highest density of forest fires and largest burned area in Europe, according to USC research coordinated by Mosquera-Losada. “There are three conditions that make fires happen: temperature over 30°[C, or 86°F], 30-plus percent humidity, and wind speeds superior to 30 km/h [19 mph],” she says. “These conditions are more frequent due to climate variability.”

‘You won’t last long’: Female goatherd smashes stereotypes

Going north and west in the direction of Lugo, the landscape changes. Pine trees (Pinus pinaster) and eucalyptus (Eucalyptus globulus) emerge from a landscape covered by light early-morning fog.

“When I arrived here, I was 30, just divorced and a single mother of a little girl of 4. All the people said I won’t last long with my goats,” says Gemma San Pedro Jiménez, 42, now a goatherd for the past 11 years. “Nobody had expectations of me. They would say: what are you doing here with goats? But I’m still here and I’ll remain with my goats.”

Her house is in front of the paddock containing a flock of 400. Originally from Barcelona and after with a forest engineering degree from Lugo University, San Pedro Jiménez decided to become a goatherd when her mother inherited 50 hectares (124 acres) of pine woods in the area surrounding the village of Borreiques.

Every evening she brings her goats to the woods; they take different routes through the pines, which filter the light and draw kaleidoscopic shadows on the undergrowth. They graze in an agroforestry system among eucalyptus and oak, known locally as carballos, looming above tojo, brezos and xesta bushes.

Younger people like her are returning to such depopulated areas, making a choice with social and ecological implications, as is also happening in Sardinia. “Rural abandonment and the consequent abandonment of traditional uses, together with the increase in forest area lacking forest management, forests adrift due to increasingly noticeable climate change, and the lack of protection measures in rural households are the perfect spark to start the forest fire disaster every year,” according to a WWF report focused on the Mediterranean.

Taking care of this forest is a daily challenge for San Pedro Jiménez. “Consumers have to understand and support the work of shepherds, changing their habits, considering that eating meat produced in this condition has strong social and ecological values. Prices are the same for 30 years and it’s not easy to survive,” she says, cuddling Chis and Jazz, her border collies. “I wish that we could be more and more working in this way, to make our voice heard.”

20,000 euros in pesticides saved

Moving west from the San Pedro Jiménez farm toward Santiago de Compostela, some pilgrims appear. COVID-19 restrictions earlier forced the suspension of the Camino de Santiago pilgrimage, but the pilgrims are now back walking the trail.

In Boimorto, 30 km from Santiago de Compostela, some pilgrims on foot and others on bikes have found shade under cherry and walnut trees that comprise the silvopasture system of a local timber enterprise called Bosques Naturales.

USC researchers study the farm’s clonal tree species’ resistance to climate change. In the trees’ shade, maize also grows, and bushes offer forage for the 400 sheep that keep the undergrowth trimmed.

The economic sustainability of the agroforestry system is crucial: with silvopasture, the researchers report savings of more than 20,000 euros ($23,500) in pesticides and related costs at Bosques Naturales, thanks to the forage that grows well in the trees’ shade. They are also experimenting with other crops to further boost the farm’s economic sustainability, such as hemp for textiles.

Shepherds as a forest fire solution

The shepherds of Galicia are working hard to find a balance between their work among silvopasture systems and long-term sustainability.

“They need more administrative support to recognize the importance of their work,” says USC’s. Mosquera-Losada. “Adequate management of the mountains with shepherding could be part of the solution to preventing fires. They understand nature and they are living examples of the solutions.”

This opinion is shared by the shepherds such as Nieves Fernández Vidueira. “Local administration should support people that work with a farm and take care of the mountains,” she says. “Forest fires are prevented with livestock, that is crucial. They have to invest in prevention.”

Yet her village is home to just 18 inhabitants, none of them young. “If the people keep leaving,” she asks, “who will protect the woods?”

This story originally appeared in Monga Bay and is republished here as part of Covering Climate Now, a global journalism collaboration strengthening coverage of the climate story.