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Authors
Advisor(s)
Abstract(s)
The Natural Park of Montesinho is a natural protected area in the Northeastern Portugal
created in 1979 in order to preserve the existing environmental qualities and enhance
important biocultural patrimony, developed for a long interaction between humans and
nature. A territory of 75000 ha that included 91 communities and nearly 8,000 residents
in 2011, distributed by two municipalities (Bragança a and Vinhais). It is one of the largest
natural parks of the 13 existing ones in Portugal. Two of the most important mountain
ranges (Serras) are Serra de Montesinho (north of Bragança a) and Serra da Coroa (north
of Vinhais). Elevation varies between 1486 meters in Montesinho and 438 meters in Mente
riverbed (Vinhais). Geography, climate and soil conditions along with particular land management
carried out over centuries have contributed to an extraordinary diversity of habitats,
wildlife and plant communities, a differential biodiversity of great significance at national,
Iberian and European levels. There is still a rich socio-cultural patrimony, combining
ancestral traditions and some innovation, marked by festivals, religious ceremonies and
many reasons for the reunion all over the year of families and neighbours. Some examples
are the All Saints’ Day and the pig slaughters, St. Stephen’s Day and the winter solstice
feasts. Traditional music and the sounds of bagpipes are other important aspects of the
regional identity. Local architecture (e.g. stone roofs, water mills, dovecotes and forges),
using the characteristic materials available according to particular knowledge and skills
is also remarkable. Montesinho and the neighboring communities of França and Portelo
are strongly connected by polychromatic landscape and the paths of shepherds, miners
and smugglers. Rio de Onor is also an emblematic village with distinguished significant
features: (i) the international border runs across the village dividing it in two sides. Rihonor
de Castilla is the Spanish side, and Rio de Onor, the Portuguese one; (ii) a communitarian
governance surviving to the end of XX century, based in collective resource management
and mutual help among residents, controlled through a community board, where every
household involved with the collective property was represented; (iii) an own dialect belonging
to the Astur-Leonese linguistic group.
Description
Keywords
Natural Park of Montesinho Biocultural heritage Montesinho ethnobotany Rio de Onore
Pedagogical Context
Citation
Carvalho, Ana Maria (2017). The Natural Park of Montesinho, Bragança, Portugal: territory, ethnobotany and cultural identity. In Ana Maria Carvalho; Manuel Pardo de Santayana; Rainer Bussmann (Coords.) Living in a global world: ethnobotany, local knowledge and sustainability. 58th Annual Meeting of the Society for Economic Botany: book of abstracts. Bragança
Publisher
Instituto Politécnico de Bragança