Do immigrant shepherds contribute to tackling generational renewal in euro-Mediterranean pastoralism?

The paper analyzes in a comparative key the role of immigrant salaried shepherds in four different Mediterranean countries (Italy, Spain, France and Greece). Their presence enables maintaining alive and productive the pastures, reproducing the patterns of a generational renewal associated to an ethnic substitution that has characterized Euro-Mediterranean pastoralism in the last century. The transition from manual labor to entrepreneurship and livestock ownership in this sector shows very low rates for migrants, and this undermines the ability of the incoming population to contribute to the future of the pastoralism. Immigrants only represent though one of the options to revive this sector. In order to promote the sustainability and the development of the pastoralism, it is necessary to ensure decent living and working conditions for extensive breeders and shepherds (foreign and local) alike, and to provide a perspective of upgrading in social as well as economic terms.