Extensive livestock farming is the most important population-fixing activity in Iberian rural areas. This is so because, unlike other activities, it requires people to take care of the animals every day. Furthermore, in many marginal rural areas, extensive livestock farming is often the only possibility that the territory has to offer.

For this reason, as Spanish rural areas become depopulated, extensive farming, local breeds and pastures, together with its people, have started to disappear as well. The landscape and culture, which were shaped by that lifestyle, are also lost along this depopulation process. Or, perhaps, it was the other way round.