Galicia, with an area of 29,539 km2, stands out for being an ideal geographical and cultural environment for the development of the primary sectors. Inland Galicia, with its plateaus and depressions, plays a fundamental role in the politics, economy, society and culture of the region with a livestock sector that represents approximately 20% of regional employment and more than 15% of the total of primary sectors in Spain, with more than 180,000 jobs; cattle breeding being the most prominent activity.

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However, since Spain's entry into the EU in 1985, the livestock sector has experienced a decline due to generic and ineffective regional and state policies; reducing the agricultural population and useful agricultural surface by half in less than a decade. Add to that the arrival of the new century, the decline due to the influence of macro-companies like Coren, the lack of control over prices and the increase in production costs. The decline of the sector is accelerating.

Meanwhile in this framework, extensive livestock farming, focused on adaptation to the environment and sustainability, was a fundamental part of the regional culture; because, despite its lower productivity, it is able to provide social and environmental benefits, such as the regulation of forest fires and the enrichment and productivity of the soil, among others. Nowadays, this livestock is on the way to extinction. This will represent the loss of a sustainable way of life, own economy and deep-rooted tradition, generating the loss of population in rural and semi-urban areas of Galicia where at present, more than 3,500 rural centers are already completely depopulated.

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PEL (Por Estes Lodos) travels through inland Galicia, with the aim of recording how the Galician rural population bears the weight of a sector in decline, in order to preserve its economy, history and tradition and where its hasty cessation exemplifies fragility of an increasingly neglected and depopulated environment.

The effects of these phenomena are already present in our society as a whole, in its economy and relationship with nature, thus determining our long-term future.