Transhumance
Transhumance is a type of mobile pastoralism in which grazing livestock are moved (droved) in herds seasonally between several fixed pastures, in contrast to sedentary pastoralism, where the livestock remain all year round on the same (typically a fenced) area of land, known as a ranch; and nomadic pastoralism, where the livestock are moved irregularly or randomly among different regions in search of any usable pastures. In montane regions, it implies livestock movement between the higher-altitude alpine steppes in summer and the alluvial grasslands in the lowland valleys in winter (i.e. vertical transhumance or alpine transhumance). In contrast, seasonal movement across the same plains or plateaus (i.e. horizontal transhumance) is typically done due to limited forage yield from a single patch of pasture and/or to avoid overgrazing, and is more susceptible to disruption by climatic, economic or political change as with any cross-region livelihoods.
In transhumance, generally only the livestock participate in mass travel, while only a small number of human professionals who directly manage the herds (i.e. the herders) will accompany the livestock's movement and dwell in camps or seasonally used huts/lodges at the grazing sites. This is in contrast to nomadic pastoralists, whose entire pastoral community tend to migrate with their herds in portable shelters such as tents and yurt. Most of the human population involved with the transhumance economy will live in sedentary homes, typically in permanent settlements, and they only come out to visit the herds and help the herders when needs arise. With the rise of modern precision livestock farming technologies, even some herders can work from home using GPS tracking, virtual fencing and agricultural drones, and only need to perform routine (typically daily) or emergency field visits via motor vehicles to personally tend the herds and then return home after the work is done.
Traditional or fixed transhumance has occurred throughout the inhabited world, particularly Europe and western Asia. It is often important to pastoralist societies, as the dairy products of transhumance flocks and herds (milk, butter, yogurt and cheese) may form much of the diet of such populations. In many languages there are words for the higher summer pastures, and frequently these words have been used as place names: e.g. hafod in Wales, shieling in Scotland, or Alm or Alp in Germany, Austria and German-speaking regions of Switzerland and Italy.