Traditional herders modify both livestock and researcher behaviour

Zsolt MOLNÁR (Vácrátót, Hungary): Traditional landscape stewards often manage and use biodiversity to produce food for the wider society. Traditional herders (one of the most common types of landscape stewards of species-rich grasslands in our region) possess a deep understanding of the livestock, its behaviour, the forages of their pastures, and the relations of livestock and plant species. Herders who keep their animals on species-rich pastures in protected areas also learn a lot from nature conservation, often through conflicts but also ever more often through cooperation and knowledge co-production with conservation rangers and scientists. Thus, traditional herding in a nature protected area is a precious opportunity as two knowledge systems meet here: Western Science and traditional/indigenous knowledge. We made knowledge co-production with herders at Kunpeszér, Kiskunság, Hungary in 2015-2016 and documented the grazing desire of beef cattle towards 117 plant species in various species-rich grasslands by visual observation of livestock behaviour. Many elements of these practices have potential conservation benefits, e.g. through avoiding under- and overgrazing, and targeted removal of pasture weeds, bushes, invasive species and litter. We argue that knowledge co-production could help develop innovative conservation management practices of species-rich grasslands.