Testimony to the enduring: carpathian shepherding, tradition and continuity

This material is a review of the collective volume Carpathian shepherding, tradition and continuity, published by the Ethnologic Publishing House, Bucharest, in 2022, coordinated by Lucian David and Ionuț Semuc, with the collaboration of Ioana Baskerville, Iulian Vlad, Laura Jiga Iliescu. In its 450 pages, it brings together valuable contributions on all aspects of traditional shepherding (complex relationships between people, animals and ecosystems; rituals and social practices, animal care and husbandry, management of land, forests and water resources, and management of natural hazards, etc.) from almost all areas in Romania where transhumant pastoralism is found (what is surprising about transhumant pastoralism is the extremely small number of villages practicing it; they are all Transylvanian, spread over a relatively narrow area, starting from Brețcu and Covasna and extending along the Transylvanian Subcarpathians through Săcele, the Branului region, the Oltului and Mărginimea Sibiului, as far as the Hațeg region), in a context in which (at the time the book was published) the Carpathian transhumance, part of traditional pastoral life, was included in the National Inventory of Living Intangible Cultural Heritage, the first step towards inclusion in the UNESCO World Heritage List.