This story was originally published by Reasons to be Cheerful
9 min read
“In Galicia, we have lots of rain and strong sun, so vegetation grows quickly and it’s hard to control,” shouts José Taboada, as we hurtle up a steep, rocky path in his rickety Land Rover. “In summer, when it dries, fires can start very easily.”
Here, in Spain’s northwest, wildfires have ravaged the landscape in recent years and have left authorities scrambling to find a solution. Galicia, a densely forested region set on the Atlantic Coast, suffered the country’s worst fires in 2025. About 118,000 hectares of forest went up in flames, an area roughly the size of New York City.
But Taboada’s community in Vincios, a parish of 2,500 residents in the southwest of the region, is rolling out a secret bovine weapon in an effort to extinguish, or at least minimize, the risk of these wildfires. They are, as locals call them, “goat-cows.”
“They eat almost everything, it’s impressive,” says Taboada, 58, now standing on a hillside admiring the herd as they munch on scrub surrounded by eucalyptus and pine forests on this August morning. He is coordinator of the Vincios land collective, which has about 140 members who manage the 678 hectares of communal forest.
The native Cachena, Spain’s smallest breed of cow, was once a common sight across Galicia. But over decades, as land use shifted from livestock pasture to industrial tree plantations, and as rural populations migrated to cities, the Cachena disappeared and by the 1980s were on the brink of extinction. In turn, much of the vegetation, once chomped up by the free-range cattle, was left untended and became overgrown. In recent years, this fact, added to the more arid conditions caused by manmade climate change, has created an increasingly favorable scenario for fires.
It was in 2017, after a fire destroyed about 80 percent of the forest in Vincios, that the community collectively decided that something had to change.
“It was terrifying,” says Taboada of the October event. While nobody in Vincios died, according to Taboada two residents of a village on the other side of the hill lost their lives in the blaze.
The community believed that grazing was the best way to reduce the risk.
For centuries, the Cachena, a hardy breed with lyre-shaped horns, had carried out its own wildfire prevention in Galicia by doing what it does best: eating. They are known as “goat-cows” because of their smaller size, their wide-ranging diet and their ability to climb mountainous terrain – traits more commonly associated with goats.
The reintroduction in Vincios began in 2023, spanning various mammals such as goats, sheep and horses as well as the Cachena, which all help to clear flammable undergrowth by grazing on the land as well as creating gaps in vegetation that can stop the spread of fires.
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Today, after the community bought initial livestock and began breeding, there are 27 Cachena, 60 goats and 26 sheep grazing. There have been no serious fires since then; last year a barbecue in a prohibited area led to a fire, but it did not spread. However, only a longer period of time will tell how fire-resistant the grazing has made the forest.
The deployment of livestock to graze on and therefore remove flammable vegetation – otherwise known as silvopastoralism – is gaining traction in Spain and beyond as a method to make fires less intense and easier to control, even if it cannot stop fires from starting, by accident or arson.
The search for an effective response has become more urgent as devastating wildfires are becoming more common in Europe, the world’s fastest-warming continent. Since the start of 2026, more than 1,600 fires larger than 30 hectares have been registered in the European Union, burning over 580,000 hectares of land. In 2025, fires caused €2.5 billion of damage ($2.9 billion U.S.) to property and infrastructure in the E.U.
“We are now entering the fifth heat wave in Europe this year alone, and this year seems to be worse in terms of the intensity of that drought period,” says Stefan Doerr, a professor of wildland fire science at Swansea University in Wales. “This intensity turns vegetation into fuel.”
Doerr, who recently contributed to a paper — still under review — assessing the potential of livestock for wildfire-hazard reduction in Mediterranean fire-prone landscapes, points to the ability of goats, cows and other large herbivores to eat “fine fuels” such as grasses and shrubs, whose burning can lead to devastating “crown” wildfires.
“Grasses are the most common way that these fires start, but they are also the easiest [component] to remove,” says Doerr. “But they come back every year. So you need that continuous removal. Animal grazing is the obvious natural solution to this, otherwise it needs to be done manually, which is a lot of work.”
Fire-preventative grazing has been shown to work in other parts of Europe. One study conducted in Sardinia, Italy, found that grazing removed 33 percent of flammable vegetation and reduced fire severity by 15 to 68 percent. Meanwhile, there’s scientific evidence of cattle grazing reducing burn probability by 45 percent in California.
And leading forestry associations argue that the benefits extend far beyond fire prevention, such as helping local farmers become more self-sufficient by shifting away from imported animal feed.
“Forest grazing helps to prevent and mitigate wildfires, enhance forest biodiversity, improve tree health, sustains high-quality production while providing livelihoods in vulnerable rural areas,” concluded a 2026 report by the European Agroforestry Federation.
Stateside efforts have proven promising, too. Since 2016, Marin County, California, has deployed sheep and goats to graze and reduce the amount of hazardous fuels on hundreds of acres of high-risk grassy woodland areas.
“It’s a great way to employ more native methods, it produces less pollution than if you were to use machinery, but it’s something people might not think about as much,” says Leila Tarabein, a research scholar for Pace University’s Land Use Law Center who co-authored an analysis of Marin County’s efforts.
She also points to other fire-prevention examples across the U.S. In Hawaii, grazing is used to manage abandoned farm fields that could grow into wildfire risk areas. In Utah, goats graze in areas where herbicides and controlled burns are not possible. “That’s why animal grazing has such an advantage,” she adds.
Tarabein also highlights the unique attributes of goats, including their mobility, the ease with which they can be transported and their robust digestive system, which allows them to consume three to four percent of their bodyweight every day.
In fact, “rent-a-goat” programs – sometimes known as goatscaping – have become popular as an environmentally friendly way of clearing overgrown brush, weeds and plants, whether for fire prevention, removing invasive species or simply maintenance.
But land collectives and researchers alike agree that the best way to reduce the risk of fires is by using a variety of methods. What’s needed, they argue, is a diversity of species used for grazing and a blend of prevention strategies, including mechanical thinning or controlled burning of vegetation, where appropriate, in order to create the most effective defense.
“It’s not only about the Cachena, you need a mix of animals because they eat different things,” adds Taboada.
Professor Doerr agrees. “What you really need is a mix of the right herbivores in the landscape — sheep, cows and horses,” he says.
Gorse is a thorny shrub that is not very digestible, so most animals avoid it — but Cachena eat it, Doerr explains. Sheep usually eat bracken, a kind of coarse fern, but in winter, when it’s dead, they don’t. However, cows might trample on it, and therefore inadvertently control it, he adds.
Yet the introduction of large numbers of livestock for grazing will not come without issues.
One of the main challenges is that it’s difficult to force animals to graze on specific areas, which may lead to overgrazing, grazing in areas where there is little fire risk or in areas where it potentially causes harm to biodiversity. “Physical fencing, virtual fencing or indeed herding are some options, but all require time and effort,” says Doerr.
The likelihood of animal-human conflict is also greater. Doerr points to examples of hikers being trampled by cows in Austria. “It is unusual, but it happens,” he says.
Meanwhile, some critics suggest that in the broader picture we should be reducing — not increasing — numbers of cows and other livestock, which create carbon emissions and consume water at a time of increasing drought. However, Doerr argues that in the face of deadly wildfires, action must be taken. “It’s a trade-off,” he says.
Back in the bucolic hills of Vincios, Taboada is confident of the community’s efforts to protect itself from deadly blazes. As well as reintroducing the Cachena and other animals, it has strategically planted chestnut trees, which burn less easily, as a defensive barrier, and installed 20 beehives to support the local ecosystem’s biodiversity.
Over the next few years, the community hopes to quadruple the number of grazing livestock — the amount it believes is needed to manage all the land. “This is just the beginning,” says Taboada, gazing at the Cachena. “We don’t look back, only forward.”
The post The Goat-Cow Is Spain’s Wildfire-Fighting Secret Weapon appeared first on Reasons to be Cheerful.
