Grasslands have suffered in recent decades particularly in the Southern part of the Mediterranean regions. This decline originated in changes in the type and intensity of land utilization, such as intensification of the management system (encroachment of cultivation), overgrazing and recurrent drought (climate variability). What makes the situation even worse is the ambiguity with respect to land tenure and government subsidies.
Dear colleague, please can you define "Mediterranean" and "grasslands"? Would you include montane-Mediterranean grasslands, for example? My studies around the Mediterranean show both intensification and extensification (abandonment) of pastures and hay meadows; further, the issue seems to me who pays for and who benefits from the ecosystem services provided by (bio-divers?) grasslands .
Dear all
May this article can be of unterest
Alrababah MA, Alhamad MA, Suwaileh A and Al-Gharaibeh M 2007. Biodiversity
of semi-arid Mediterranean grasslands: impact of grazing and afforestation.
Applied Vegetation Science 10, 257–264
Attached examples from central-Italy of montane-Mediterranean and alpine-Mediterranean abandoned pastures, the latter extremely endemic-rich; in the montane belt both private and public ownership occurs, in the alpine belt state ownership with historical pastoral rights exist, but are not exercised anymore (rural depopulation); the alpine grazing rights included both long-and short distance transhumance. Under my RG-Contributions you find an older example of abandoned species-rich meadows from now Slovenia at lower elevations.
Article Fine resolution distribution modelling of endemics in Majell...
Hi Mounir
I have no specific knowledge of the Medit grasslands, but recently I worked with colleagues on a project targeting the value of non-marketed ecosystem services from grasslands - using Denmark, Estonia and Poland as examples.
As part of this work we found that not much attention has been paid by environmental economists to grasslands as such - only every now and then as part of agriculture more generally.
Below some references, which might open for more studies of relevance to you
/ Bo
Dallimer, M., J.B. Jacobsen, T.H. Lundhede, K. Takkis, M. Giergiczny and B.J. Thorsen, 2015: Patriotic values for public goods: Transnational trade-offs for biodiversity and ecosystem services? Forthcoming at BioScience:
http://bioscience.oxfordjournals.org/content/early/2014/11/20/biosci.biu187.short?rss=1
Vi found few or no studies on the non-marketed values of such grassland, but nevertheless, the below references may be of some value
Bateman IJ, et al. (2006) Analysing the agricultural costs and non-market benefits of implementing the water framework directive. Journal Of Agricultural Economics 57:221-237.
European Commission (2008) Life and europe’s grasslands. Restoring a forgotten habitat; (Office for Official Publications of the European Communities, Luxembourg).
De Deyn GB, et al. (2011) Additional carbon sequestration benefits of grassland diversity restoration. J. Appl. Ecol. 48:600-608.
Veen P, Jefferson R, de Smidt J, & van der Straaten J eds (2009) Grasslands in europe of high nature value (KNNV Publishing, Zeist).
Dear Bo, may thanks for your valuable information you shared with us. Best, Mounir
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