Thomas Baffault
Sheep shearer for 14 years now, Thomas is in daily contact with shepherds, some of whom have been essential mentors for him. They showed him a very simple way to the intimate understanding of the cycles of life. Through contact with them, he realized that subsistence knowledge directly linked to nature provides a profoundly virtuous serenity, inscribed in our genes. It is this search for our ancestral skills that led him to learn tracking, basketry, wild plants and to decide to pass them on. He trained at the Tracker School of Tom Brown Jr. and within the CyberTracker network for which he organizes the certifications in France.
Tracking
Tracking is the intimate reading of our environment. It develops in us the empathy essential to the safeguarding of our human, animal, vegetable and mineral relations.
The practice of tracking is as fun as it is sophisticated, playing detective while calling upon a wide range of ecological knowledge to deduce or predict an animal’s behavior, thus arousing the interest of both young and old.
Learning to distinguish the presence of animals in the hollow makes the forest more alive and mysterious at the same time. This provides a better understanding of animal and plant interactions and our role and impact in a given environment.
For me, tracking is a great gateway to all the outdoor skills: orientation, shelter building, sensory awareness, introspection, caring for others.
