MARTOR no. 29 / year 2024
Urban Pastoralism around Bucharest: Between Preserving Livelihoods and Adapting to Pressure from Urban Sprawl
DOI: www.doi.org/10.57225/martor.2024.29.09
AUTHOR:
Roxana Maria Triboi
LE:NOTRE Institute, Wageningen, Netherlands
ORCID: 0000-0002-0816-075X
PAGES: 126-142
KEYWORDS: Urban sprawl; pastoralism; nature-based solution; productive green infrastructure; commons.
ABSTRACT:
The pastoral practice as subsistence process characterised by the “commons” in terms of property and management has declined in the industrial era because of its perceived low productivity and competition with intensified agriculture, industry, urban functions, infrastructure, and urban sprawl. Today, the animal production sector is dominated by the intensive industrial model that negatively impacts the global health. The survival in almost original form of the pastoral activity is related to its independence from mechanisation and urban infrastructure. The intensive process of urban sprawl of the last decades, characterised by the expansion of cities, often leads to various socio-economic and environmental impacts, including the creation of abandoned or underutilised spaces within urban and peri-urban settings. The adaptation of this practice to the urban context has resulted in diverse ways of management across Europe, different approaches based on the traditional form or encouraged by contemporary activism. In the Balkans, the persistence of the pastoral practice and its short and medium transhumance infrastructure is strongly related to the strategy of avoiding state management and the persistence of alternative food networks. In Western Europe, innovative aspects like developing complex management plans for marketing and communicating on the activity, local actors’ inclusion in the co-construction process of the project, connection to local food networks are important features of modern urban pastoralism. The current challenges of this activity encompass the lack of specialised know-how specific to pastoral practices and aligning the operational conditions of extensive livestock to current societal expectations and standards.
HOW TO CITE THIS ARTICLE:
Triboi, Roxana Maria. 2024. “Urban Pastoralism around Bucharest: Between Preserving Livelihoods and Adapting to Pressure from Urban Sprawl.” Martor 29, 126-42. [DOI: 10.57225/martor.2024.29.09]
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