Living treasures, common goods and tourism in the Agdal of Yagour in the Zat valley – Western High Atlas, Morocco

Abstract

The plateau of Yagour is one of the high places of the cultural and natural
heritage of the northern watershed of the Toubkal massif in Morocco.
Through his inheritances, he attests to a long adaptation of the Man to
his environment. Indeed, since the prehistory, the residents of the Yagour
have adopted agro-pastoralism as a way of life. Through their ancestral
know-how, they maintain a symbiosis between two productive systems,
namely agriculture (vegetable, cereal and fruit), and extensive livestock
farming. Common property shared and managed by rights holders from
neighboring valleys, the Yagour constitutes a resource of reserve and survival
during the dry season. The villagers’ then transhumate in the summer
pastures of the Yagour which they have commonly reserved for natural
regeneration from the beginning of spring to the beginning of summer. In
addition to this management system locally called “Agdal”, the Yagour is full
of heritage treasures including rock carvings dating back more than 2000
years before our era for the oldest. These trace the history and evolution of
the predecessors of the mountain people around the Yagour.
Today, this place of sacredness and ancestral culture undergoes various
socio-spatial changes that constrain the perpetuity of its inheritances and
landscapes. The development of the accessibility of the Yagour favors the
mobility of riparian populations and, of course, tourists. Straddling between
the valley of mass tourism of “Ourika” and the valley barely touristic of the
“Zat”, the Yagour plateau should in the near future face the challenges of
the tourism industry.