What is a butterfly without its shepherd?

Our final project is a multimedia campaign targeting mainly mountain visitors, but also the general public, stakeholders, and key actors. Alongside the campaign materials, we developed a distribution strategy to reach our audience effectively. First, we created a flyer offering a general introduction to the topic, emphasizing respectful mountain behavior, and featuring a fun, easy quiz to test knowledge. This flyer will be available at tourist offices across South Tyrol and in selected mountain huts.

We also designed three billboards, each posing a reflective question about the shepherd’s role: "Was ist ein Berg ohne seine Schäferin?", "What is a butterfly without its shepherd?", and "Cos’è un fiore senza il suo pastore?" Large visuals highlight these questions. The billboards will be placed at key locations around South Tyrol, mainly bus stops leading to the mountains.

Lastly, our website serves as both a standalone resource and the project’s content hub, with QR codes on flyers and billboards linking to it. The site features two main sections: an introductory story about the shepherd Andrea, based on real exchanges and project insights, told poetically through scrollytelling with illustrations and animations, and a virtual hiking trail exploring ten topics related to shepherds’ roles in South Tyrol, encouraging visitors to reflect on these themes during their own hikes. 

Further distribution will be supported through the local nature museum’s special exhibition, the Alpenverein network, Eurac, and the EU project “Lifestock Protect.”

At the start of the semester, we immersed ourselves in the role of shepherds in South Tyrol by visiting the grazing exhibition at Bolzano’s nature museum, attending talks, studying literature, conducting field visits to shepherds, reading research papers, and consulting people working with shepherds or on related topics.

Next, we organised the gathered information using design research methods such as backcasting, clustering, and sorting based on relevance and communication channels. Together with our partner, we analysed the target audience and set our project goal: raising awareness of shepherding as a skilled profession. Since the topic and audience were broad, we decided to focus on mountain visitors, including locals and tourists such as hikers and bikers, using proper mountain behavior as a link to the subject.

We then followed two intertwined work paths: visualizing the content and crafting the texts with careful wording. Throughout, we collaborated closely with our partner, balancing the needs to inform, educate, engage interest, represent the topic accurately, and maintain the right depth.

The three outputs were developed simultaneously, sharing a consistent visual language and interlinked media channels that also function independently.

After finalising content and visuals, we focused on implementing all elements while organizing the distribution and placement of our results.

It was our goal to understand the complexities of shepherding as best as possible within our timeframe. Instead of observing from a distance, we chose immersion—listening to stories, experiencing the land, and engaging directly with shepherds. This led us to adopt auto-ethnography, integrating our own experiences into the research. We spent time with Matthias in the Alps and with Sandra and Daniel along the Adige River, observing their gestures, routines, and practices, while listening to their stories and experiences.

This approach revealed not only the practical aspects of their work, but also its emotional, social, and environmental dimensions. Auto-ethnography allowed us to capture sensory experiences—like sun on the skin or fresh goat cheese—that became valuable data. It also highlighted how our own perspectives shaped the research. The process was as much about self-reflection as understanding the shepherds. That’s why we decided to find a way to share this  experience, by co-creating a story with the shepherds we met, based on their personal stories.

Since we were all new to the topic of shepherds in South Tyrol, we had to use the limited time during the semester wisely to gain enough understanding and find the best way to present the information effectively. Although it was a bit overwhelming at first, we adapted quickly. Eurac gave us a strong head start and continuously directed us to new projects, people, and literature. It was important to stay focused and avoid drifting into other topics, keeping the project scope realistic.

As the project progressed, managing and curating the large amount of information became increasingly challenging. We also realised the topic is sensitive and controversial, connected to other complex issues like wolves and agriculture. Including shepherds in the project was essential, but we soon understood they have diverse opinions and personalities, which made it challenging to represent them all fairly.

Deciding on the target group and main goal was another difficult step. Addressing the general public was ambitious due to its broad scope. To maintain focus while still reaching many people, we chose to target those who spend time in the mountains. Initially, we hoped to encourage specific actions after engaging with our content, but due to Eurac’s legal framework, we shifted our goal to fostering a change in behaviour—from disrespectful to respectful—towards all human and non-human mountain inhabitants. We aim to impact how shepherds in South Tyrol are perceived.

Our future goals operate on different levels. On a small scale, we hope to inspire individuals to think more appreciatively about shepherds. On a larger scale, we aspire to influence policymakers to support shepherds through structural changes.

We also hope to reach more traditional shepherds and encourage them to see their role as vital for landscape management and biodiversity preservation. Given the current challenges of the profession, few people choose to become shepherds. A positive side effect of the project is to make the job more attractive and motivate new guardians of the mountains. Economically, we ensured our outputs are durable and can be maintained by Eurac for years with minimal effort.