For millennia, the donkey was seen as the symbol of stubbornness. “Horses do things out of obligation. Donkeys do them out of conviction,” says Joan Cedó, who launched the Tivissa Donkeys Firefighters in 2020. What started as a pilot with three donkeys over five acres has grown into the daily work of about 40 animals—all rescued from neglect or abuse—dedicated to clearing over 980 acres of public and private land in the mountainous region of Tarragona, Catalonia.
“A donkey weighs three times as much as a goat, so when it moves, it breaks up vegetation more effectively,” says Cedó. “A donkey also eats roughly ten times more than a goat. That means its daily impact is much greater.”
Have they been as effective as their Doñana counterparts? “Since we introduced donkeys in our municipality, there have been no wildfires,” says Cedó. He believes that with more government support, the herd could grow to 300 animals and protect a much wider area.
In Allariz, a town in the Ourense province of northwestern Spain, the donkeys of Asociación Andrea work similarly, maintaining about 2,470 acres of forest within a UNESCO biosphere reserve. The project began in an abandoned village, where the group, in collaboration with the local council, tested a land restoration model: first with manual clearing, then with the help of donkeys that kept the terrain weed-free.
Over time, the effort expanded to the core zone of the reserve. The donkeys roam freely and are tracked by GPS, which alerts caretakers if they stray beyond safe limits. They walk up to 12 miles a day, feeding mainly on low shrubs—the same type of vegetation that causes wildfires.