The main objective we wanted to achieve with the EcoPastos project was to train future shepherds in mountain management focused on safeguarding fodder resources, maintaining and improving the biodiversity of our mountains, making them more resilient to climate change and contributing to its mitigation. To this end, it was necessary to carry out an initial phase of training teaching staff in the DP methodology, which would enable them to reformulate and create the new DP training module. This new course, which has already been tested during the project, will become part of the training curriculum of the two centres and will be taught in the coming years, allowing a total of 125-145 new students to be trained in this methodology over the next 5 years. In Spain, there was the added objective of raising awareness of the DP methodology among mountain management agents in order to ensure that this methodology is implemented in the regular management of mountain pastures.
In Spain, there are no technical centres that carry out and apply eco-pastoral diagnoses (DP) and, consequently, there is no specific training in DP for future shepherds. In France, there are technical centres that carry out and implement DP, and the CFPPA also offers a course in DP as part of its training programme. However, this course has long since ceased to adequately respond to current environmental and professional needs. Climate change is affecting mountain ecosystems, but pastoral training has not yet incorporated strategies for climate change adaptation and mitigation and biodiversity conservation. The Catalan Shepherds' School (EPC) needed to create a new specialised training programme that is not available in Spain and for which there are no technical experts to develop it, and the CFPPA needed support and an outside perspective to update its training module and adapt it to current professional needs. Cooperation between the two entities has made it possible to meet the training needs of teaching staff and to create a new training module in DP that reinforces both training programmes and responds to the new challenges thet the shepherds are facing.