LIFE Maronesa kicked off the month of March with another collaboration with the Diogo Cão School Group. We accepted an invitation from the 8thB class at the Diogo Cão 2/3 Primary School to take part in the project to develop the ‘Alvão Explorer’ app. This challenge is part of the school’s participation in the international Apps for Good project.
This app aims to create a platform for information and promotion on the trails, fauna, flora, gastronomy and local heritage for future visitors and tourists to the Alvão Natural Park, particularly in areas without internet access.
This tool is a unique opportunity to promote the Alvão Natural Park in an innovative and sustainable way in order to contribute to the valorisation of the region’s natural and cultural heritage.
Before starting to prepare the app’s design, the students of the 8thB class had a theory lesson at school on 25 March, given by project manager Henrique Mira Godinho, on the subject of extensive grazing and the actions of the LIFE Maronesa project, with a focus on the current problems and solutions of mountain livestock and shepherd farming in the Serra do Alvão.
On 4 April, they weren’t disappointed by the bad weather and travelled to Lamas de Ôlo and Dornelas to visit the farm of livestock breeder Rafael Costa.
They revised the material given in the previous lesson and weren’t shy about asking questions to the LIFE Maronesa breeder.
They saw how the farmer distributes his animals on the farm, the more independent calves in one group, the newborns in another, the cows that have yet to give birth and the ones that every day go off comfortably to the common land to feed on what the mountains give them and then return to breastfeed their calves in safety and cosiness. The farmer also showed the students how he feeds his herd throughout the year, demonstrating the machines and tools he uses most resourcefully and efficiently.
The bad weather didn’t allow for much of an adventure in the common land to be able to analyse the role of herbivores in the field in practice, but they did take a generous stroll through the farmer’s meadows and woodlands and appreciated the transformations that these animals bring about in the soil and vegetation of this land.
This initiative reinforces LIFE Maronesa’s commitment in supporting the dissemination of the benefits and good practices of livestock farming and extensive grazing in the schools of the Serra do Alvão region and its four municipalities.
