Transhumance tradition returns to French Alps

The Transhumance Festival returned to Le Collet d’Allevard in the Belledonne massif, where several dozen people gathered to follow an ancestral Alpine tradition.

Footage shows around 700 sheep, lambs, rams and goats moving towards high-altitude pastures, guided by shepherds from the Gap region as they head into their summer grazing grounds.

Transhumance is a thousand-year-old practice in which livestock move seasonally between winter lowlands and summer mountain grazing areas.

Once weakened by changes in farming practices and the modernisation of livestock farming, it is now seeing renewed interest across Alpine regions.

Beyond its cultural value, it also helps maintain landscapes, support biodiversity and limit scrub growth, reducing the risk of wildfires in mountain areas.