NOMADS LAND DRIES UP
NOMADS LAND DRIES UP
Richard Maxfield went to spend two weeks with Bosnian
nomadic shepherds in the mountains of Manjeca and Vlasic.
He found a group of farmers hemmed in by land-mines and
new international borders.
AT the end of each October, with the arrival of the first snows in Bosnia, Ismet Fusko gathers his sheep from their summer grazing on the slopes of the Vlasic mountains and takes them on a 250-mile trek east, towards the plains and milder weather of Vojvodina in Northern Yugoslavia.
For the past 53 years – excluding the war years – 65-year-old Ismet has been living this semi-nomadic lifestyle, spending five months in his native Bosnia and the other seven on the move looking for winter pasture land.
This year, however, he has decided that the journey is beyond him. Not because he is too old for the job, but because six years ago one of his sheep set off an anti-tank mine, killing 20 of the flock and leaving him nursing shrapnel wounds in his legs.
This kind of thing tends to slow a man down and although Ismet struggled on for the past few years, the travelling became too arduous and he has now passed on the work to his son.
With his "early" retirement, Ismet has joined a growing number of sheep farmers in Bosnia who have decided to call it a day rather than try to grind out a living in the traditional, nomadic way. "This has always been a difficult way to make a living," says Jovan Vujinovic, another nomadic shepherd from the Vlasic, "but since the war it has been almost impossible for us to live this way."
Before the war, the sheer scale and natural geography of the former Yugoslavia had created a perfect environment for the nomadic lifestyle. Each winter the nomads were able to escape the harsh weather in the Bosnian and Montenegrin highlands by driving their sheep down through the valleys to the rolling plains of Serbia and Croatia. There would be the inevitable run-ins with the forces of law and order and the occasional land disputes, but these problems could usually be resolved by a little Balkan negotiation and the nomads would generally be left alone.
* Break up in 1995
However, with the final break-up of Yugoslavia in 1995, the Bosnian farmers suddenly found themselves hemmed in, pinned between the land mines in their mountain homelands and the border guards of the newly formed states.
Over a lunch of wild strawberries and plum brandy, while his dogs watched over the sheep, Jovan talked at length about the old way of life and the difficulties the nomads are now facing. "Bosnia has nothing but mountains and the sheep cant survive here during the winter," he says. "We have to be able to keep moving in order to survive."
Like many of the farmers on the Vlasic, Jovan began working at an early age. He was only 14 when he made his first journey into the Croatian republic accompanying his father and a group of three other shepherds from the Vlasic. When his father eventually retired, the flock was split equally between the members of the family. His brothers sold their share to help set up a sawmill and fish farm, but Jovan decided he would continue the family tradition, despite the inherent difficulties of the job.
"Even before the war there were problems moving from one republic to another in Yugoslavia," he says. "The police would try to catch us and we would have to pay a fine if we did not have the correct papers and veterinary certificates." The nomads became skilled at evasive action and the stories they tell could have come straight out of the Boys Own magazine.
Shepherds would spend nights up to their waists in freezing water ferrying their sheep illegally on small rafts across the Sava River into Croatia. On other occasions they would have to hide their sheep deep in the forests to avoid the attention of the police.
Hardly standard EU agricultural practice, but with their tight profit margins, the nomads had to make savings where they could. To be caught trespassing, without the appropriate paperwork, would mean a fine of 1m Dinar (£65) or 20 days in the municipal jail.
When Jovo Vulin was arrested for trespassing with his flock in the village of Kumrovac in Croatia, he spent his time in custody regaling his young captors with war stories. The police, suitably impressed by these tales of heroism, dropped all charges.
In this way the nomads were able to get by and in the spring they could return to Bosnia with their newborn lambs to be sold at the May markets. But since 1995 no amount of guile or quick-wittedness will help the nomads gain access into the newly formed states with their stricter regulations and tougher penalties.
* Fight for land
This winter they will travel only as far as the banks of the Sava and Drina rivers, on the northern and eastern edges of Bosnia. Here they will have to fight for land, not only with other shepherds but also with local residents and the refugees who are now living there. The present economic situation in Bosnia has put a great strain on the land. With unemployment in some places as high as 65%, people have had to resort to a subsistence level of existence and all viable land has been put to use. A plastic bag hanging from a pole marks land that has been set aside for domestic use and warns the nomads that access is forbidden. These days there is little welcome in the valleys.
Traditionally the summer months provided respite for the shepherds, as they were able to take a break from the hard travelling and return to their families in the mountains. Since the war though, even the mountains no longer provide refuge. Looking down over the Vlasic, one could be forgiven for thinking the conflict in Bosnia is now merely a distant unhappy memory – the landscape appears surprisingly unaffected by the devastation heaped upon it during the war. But the real threat in Bosnia lies 3in under the surface. Mine experts working in the region estimate that there are as many as 50,000 land mines in the Vlasic region alone.
Despite the obvious dangers the shepherds seem almost oblivious as they move around the hillsides. Jovan produces a crumpled map from his back pocket, given to him by Dutch peacekeepers, which displays the minefields with ugly red dots. The map was obviously intended as no more than a rough guide to the location of minefields, but Jovan waves it around as if it possesses special powers that will ward off evil. Despite their apparent belief in their own invulnerability, however, almost all the shepherds have stories of mine incidents that have killed their animals or caused human injuries.
Officials responsible for the mine awareness campaigns in Bosnia have long since tired of trying to educate this particular group of farmers. A representative of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) said their statistics showed farm workers, in addition to hunters and fishermen, constituted the largest group of people involved in mine incidents. However, whereas the huntsmen and fishermen could be reached through their associations, the nomads, with their transient lifestyle, were almost impossible to bring together. In any case, the nomads hard-headed, individualistic approach to life does not make them the greatest students.
The mine situation has also played a role in assisting the resurgence of the Bosnian farmers oldest enemy – the European Grey Wolf. With large areas of woodland out of bounds to hunters, the wolf has slowly begun to prosper again in post-war Bosnia.
While conservationists welcome the news, for the farmers it presents another threat to their livelihood. At night the dogs are tethered close to the sheep and act as a strong deterrent to the packs that wander the mountains. But a lone wolf when hungry enough, is willing to take the risk and will jump a tethered dog. There have been cases in the past couple of years of farmers losing more than 10 sheep to a wolf attack in a single night.
Despite their great resilience, the changes of the past decade have begun to take their toll on the nomad population. Before the war, it was estimated there were over 100 nomadic farmers from the Vlasic region. This winter fewer than 20 will take to the road.
Later that day Jovan turns the conversation around to farming in Britain and is particularly interested in hearing about the foot-and-mouth problem and how the farmers are coping with it. He is pleased to hear farmers will receive some compensation for their losses and wonders if he will ever receive any compensation for the animals he has lost. It is a nice idea, but given the present economic situation in Bosnia, it is probably not one worth lingering on.
For in the end the question is not about the livestock that the shepherds have lost but about the land that has disappeared from under their feet, and sadly no amount of compensation will be able to bring that back.
Numbers of nomadic sheep farmers in Bosnia are declining sharply.
The natural geography of Yugoslavia was ideal for nomads before the war.
Tethered dogs are used to deter wolves from attacking the sheep.
Milking a sheep in a shelter. The nomads now have to fight for land.
Many of the farmers on the Vlasic began working with other family members when they were as young as 14.
Avoiding the 50,000 mines in the Vlasic region is a daily problem for the nomadic sheep farmers, but they are surprisingly stoical about it.