Les éleveurs et I'estive : pour une approche compréhensive des pratiques pastorales.

In the Ariège department (French Pyrénées), the restructuring of mountain cattle farming and of pastoralism has brought about profound changes in the relations cattle farmers entertain with the high mountain pastureland. Gaining insight into the endogenous meaning of the practices of cattle breeders traditionally using these summer pastures allows the highlighting of the emergence and confrontation of two technical and symbolic bodies of references on the mountain. While the summer pastures remain the organizing and identitary principle for the mountain farmers who are the traditional "users" of the high mountain area, other "non-local" farmers from lower lying areas who practise short distance transhumance view these pastures as one among other economic opportunities. Strong attachment to customary rights, the sole guarantee for people's and animals' legitimacy to use the "high mountain", enables these high mountain farmers, even though a minority, to keep control over the management methods of grazing resources. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]