On Christmas Eve, at 77 years old, Jesús Garzón left us, if wise men, heroes or poets can leave, because all that was suso for environmental defenders. A unique conservationist and naturalist, forged in the open air and accustomed to sleeping under the stars, taught from a young age by the fire of guards and shepherds, enlightened and cultured like few others and a true cum laude at the university of nature.
I clearly remember a conversation that, when I was very young—more than 30 years ago—we had in Extremadura next to a humble bush and in which Suso, who was capable of capturing you like no one else with that deep and slow voice, convinced me to that the bush had nothing humble about it. He explained to me in a passionate tone that the bramble was a wonder of nature, that it fixed the ground next to the water, that it was the pantry of the northern warblers when they migrated and a true armed fortress where the rabbits that the lynx hunted found refuge. And he finished with some verses about blackberries and a recipe for making jam. This was Suso, a walking encyclopedia with dazzling knowledge of everything around him, capable of interpreting a landscape with just a glance, connecting the invisible plots of nature with centuries of human history and with the popular culture that surrounded him.
In the seventies, when only those who lived there went out into the countryside, Suso, with the support of WWF, traveled inch by inch across the mountains and plains of that still wild and unexplored Spain in search of the last lynxes, wolves, bears, grouse, and bustards. and the few pairs of imperial eagles that still remained, almost extinct and cornered by an uneducated society that still considered them simple vermin. This pioneering knowledge allowed him to implement the first measures for its conservation and earned him, from a very young age, the friendship of Félix Rodríguez de la Fuente and the respect of the best biologists and scientists, amazed by the extraordinary knowledge of wildlife that he demonstrated. .
In the mid-seventies, while exploring the Extremaduran mountains and climbing the Monfragüe castle, he discovered how the excavators of the National Institute for the Conservation of Nature (ICONA) devastated the slopes where the Tagus River meets the Tietar, uprooting cork oaks, olive trees and jaguar trees to replace the native forest with monotonous eucalyptus trees. Suso left everything and moved to live with Isabel, his traveling companion, and their children, in the heart of Monfrague and gave himself body and soul to a true crusade inside and outside of Spain until he managed to stop the terracing and the declaration of Monfragüe as a natural park in 1979. Surely, that temple of Mediterranean biodiversity that we are proud of today would not exist without their determination and courage.
In 1984, he was appointed General Director of the Environment of the Government of Extremadura, making history by being the first conservationist to lead an administration and manage to place this unknown region at the top of the biodiversity map of Europe. But three years later he left the offices to return to activism and the field. Because Suso was a conservationist who participated in the founding and life of some of the main nature defense organizations in our country, such as WWF, Seo/Birdlife, ADENEX in Extremadura, ARCA in Cantabria, the CODA or the Natural Heritage Fund , who in those years of developmentalism fought countless battles to save from machines and cement many of the natural jewels that we fortunately have today in Spain. Suso was a teacher and a reference for many of the people who today lead the defense of the environment and who were lucky enough to know him and learn from him.
Defender of transhumance
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But what he will probably be most remembered for is his fight to recover livestock routes, extensive livestock farming and defend the last nomadic people against the overwhelming current model based on industrial, unsustainable and uprooted livestock farming. On the contrary, Suso staunchly defended seasonal grazing as a key, totally current piece of our culture and our history that had to be rescued. And I defended our 125,000 kilometers of livestock trails as a unique infrastructure in the world and a strategic weapon to mitigate climate change and adapt to the impacts that are yet to come, to produce quality food while reducing the consumption of water, feed and energy, and to combat rural abandonment and the collapse of traditional culture. To do this, he founded conservation organizations focused on this objective, such as Concejo de la Mesta and Trashumancia y Naturaleza, and became another shepherd who each year set off at the head of the flock of sheep, goats or cows to transhumance in search of new pastures between Andalusia and Teruel or between the pastures of Extremadura and the ports of León.
For three decades, with cold or heat, sun and snow, Suso traveled through the ravines and cordeles of Spain to denounce their urbanization or the invasion by agriculture or roads and demand the recovery of this public good for the use and enjoyment of the entire population. society. That is why every year Suso burst into Madrid, crossing the heart of the city with hundreds of sheep and goats, reminding us that we are all descended from shepherds, that transhumance is part of our collective tradition and the ancestral right of the flocks over the cars to travel.
Finally, this December, UNESCO has registered transhumance as Intangible Heritage of Humanity for “contributing to social inclusion, the strengthening of cultural identity and the ties between families, communities and territories”, a well-deserved recognition for the lives of Jesús Garzón and that of the last nomads in the world who still practice this way of life as revolutionary as it is ancestral.
There are people who leave their mark, people who don't leave. Suso will always be in every shepherd who transhumates, in every shear that sounds and in every new voice that is raised in defense of wild nature and life in the open and undomesticated air. Rest in peace.
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