Tibor Hartel and Tobias Plieninger: European wood-pastures in transition: a social-ecological approach

Abstract

Wood-pastures were a traditional and common landscape in many regions of Europe but recent decades have seen them undergo a marked decline. Prompted by the many facets of global change, the complex network of interacting factors that shaped the unique character of these systems is slowly collapsing and the downfall of European wood-pastures threatens to obliterate their unique ecological and cultural values. The various expressions of wood-pastures observed across Europe are a reflection of local to global socioenvironmental conditions and, therefore, addressing their decline requires an innovative and encompassing approach. The authors lead the way forward by providing readers with a new and enveloping perspective that uses a ‘social–ecological framework to explore social and ecological values, governing institutions, threats and conservation approaches’. The book is organized under six main sections (Part I–VI) and contains 17 chapters spanning 303 pages. The first part of the book contains a comprehensive introduction to wood-pastures, covering their diversity and role as high nature value landscapes, their social and ecological dimensions, threats and conservation. Part II covers the history and change of wood-pastures over time, going from their origin in medieval times to exploring current drivers of change. Part III explores the biodiversity and ecology of wood-pastures; it addresses plant diversity, the role of grazing on landscape structure and provides a particularly interesting account of the importance of wood-pastures and old trees for saproxylic invertebrates, a threatened but neglected component of biodiversity. The fourth part focuses on the socio-cultural values associated with wood-pastures, such as landscape identity, traditional ecological knowledge, spiritual values and the cultural heritage of ancient trees. The role of governance institutions at the community, regional and international levels is analysed in detail throughout Part V. Finally, Part VI provides a synthesis of the issues explored in the previous chapters, analysing woodpastures under the frame of the EU Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) and discussing future perspectives for European wood-pastures. Within the thematic sections (Part II–IV), several chapters are accompanied by profiles of different European wood-pastures, which provide an overview of their diversity, status and threats across North-western, Southern and Eastern European regions. With this work, the authors deliver a much-needed and timely contribution towards diagnosing the challenges and opportunities for the future of European wood-pastures, in a timewhen they aremost threatened. Each individual chapter is a solid piece of work that can stand out individually for the readers interested in R. A. Correia (&) Centro de Biologia Ambiental, Departamento de Biologia Animal, Faculdade de Ciencias, Universidade de Lisboa, 1749-016 Lisbon, Portugal e-mail: rahc85@gmail.com