Livestock

500+ attendees at Livestock Protection Conference

On the 26th of January the first multilingual Alpine Livestock Protection conference took place online. This conference was the official Kick-off of the LIFEstockProtect project. In total, over 500 participants joined the event. A great success! Due to simultaneous translation of the German conference to Italian and English people all over Europe could join. Four livestock protection practitioners – farmers from Italy, Austria, and Germany – shared their personal experiences. The audience was very engaged with the content of the conference and asked many questions. To finish a great day, the LIFEstockProtect team also welcomed 55 journalists in an online Press Conference.

The Speakers

The LIFEstockProtect project is unique because it is a project by, for and with agricultural organizations. The involved agricultural organizations, in the forefront BIOAUSTRIA Niederösterreich und Wien as coordinating beneficiary, take the initiative for livestock protection in the German-speaking Alpine region. Thus, the first of four livestock protection conferences also had a very practical focus. The presenters shared their experiences with livestock protection and gave valuable insights into why and how livestock protection is the way forward to achieve coexistence of humans and large carnivores.

René Gomringer from Bavaria, former director of the sheep farmers’ association, told the audience about the challenges of introducing livestock protection measures and how this led to his decision to found the Schafbüro. Currently, he is consulting farmers about livestock protection, amongst others. His experience is a valuable addition to the project. Then, Fabio Boni shared his experience of working together with volunteers to protect livestock as part of the Pasturs project. Also he gave his insights into the work of a shepherd in Italy, the challenges that come with it, and how beneficial volunteers can be.

Finally, the sheep farmer Walter Schmiedhofer from Styria in Austria and shepherd Thomas Schranz from Tyrol shared their perspectives on livestock protection. Whereas Walter, on the one hand, just started to implement protection measures, Thomas on the other hand has experience in different terrains, different measures and even worked with volunteers. Their different viewpoints but coherent opinion about the importance of effective protection measures complemented a successful conference.

Impressive numbers and great feedback

In total, more than 500 people from all over Europe participated in the conference. The live-streaming of the conference on Facebook allowed to reach 5200 additional listeners. In the background, the LIFEstockProtect team engaged with the audience via a Q&A, answering more than 200 questions in German, Italian, and English. The questions mainly focused on the practical aspect of livestock protection. The audience asked for advice, additional information on livestock protection trainings, and even offered to collaborate with the the project. Eventually, they also expressed their positive feedback about the event and how it was set up.

Thank you for this interesting event and the great organization. I was very pleased to be able to follow the conference in English due to simultaneous translations. I learned a lot about livestock protection and I am looking forward to seeing the project progress.

Conference participant

The online set up of the conference allowed for the participation of a very diverse international audience and effective exchange of ideas, which would have not been possible at an on-sight event. Did you miss it? The recording of the conference will be available on the LIFEstockProtect Youtube channel, for whoever who could not attend!

LIFEstockProtect Press Conference

In the afternoon, the LIFEstockProtect team welcomed 55 journalists in an online Press Conference. After the Project Management gave an overview about the project, the journalists were able to ask questions to all 17 project partners. After a first round of questions the session was split into three different breakout rooms in order to ask region-specific questions of Austria, Germany, and Italy. Like this, the project partners were able to share in-depth insight into the project and address the most pending questions.

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