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In the Hautes-Pyrénées, hundreds of shepherds find themselves in a most delicate situation. Since the health crisis, sheep’s wool is no longer successful and prices have collapsed, to the point that breeders are forced to burn tons of wool that has become unsaleable.
In the heart of the Basque Country, they have been part of the landscape for decades. Before the arrival of summer, the ewes begin their transhumance through the mountains. But before that, they must remove their fleece. In a family farm in Ostabat-Asme (Pyrénées-Atlantiques), 300 Manech à Tête Noire ewes will follow one another under the comb of the shepherds. The wool is then stored. But for a few years now it has been useless.
There are no more buyers, to the great despair of Gabi Haranberri, the owner of the herd. This wool, which represented several hundred incomes just ten years ago, is today considered too poor in quality to make clothes, or too expensive to process to stuff mattresses. As a result, some breeders explain, off camera, that they had to burn it to get rid of it. A waste to which some artisans in the region do not resign themselves, such as Jean Dalatour Ventura, founder of Tokilia, one of the last to collect it.
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