Dehesas and montados are Mediterranean agroforestry systems characterized by scattered oak trees with an understory grazed extensively by livestock and, in some cases, periodically cropped. A long history of traditional management practices has created an open woodland widely recognized for rich biodiversity and multiple ecosystem services. Concerns about challenges to their longterm viability have motivated many disparate scientific studies in recent decades. We provide a synthesis of this growing body of international literature, focusing on the links between land use and management practices, biodiversity, and policy, from a "high nature value farming systems" perspective. The present review comprises 128 empirical studies carried out in Spain and Portugal. Conservation trends were assessed according to categories adapted from the DPSIR (Drivers -Pressures -State -Impacts -Responses) framework. Socio-cultural factors, economic dynamics, and agricultural policies were found to be key drivers of change, resulting in intensification of livestock production and land use simplification, among other effects. Insufficient tree regeneration and a broad range of other factors were identified as pressures that have often negative impacts on biodiversity and ecosystem services, moving the system away from its archetypical ecological state. A variety of management and policy responses were suggested, ranging from specific conservation techniques to landscape-level initiatives. Ecosystem components and management practices were typically studied separately, and mainly from an ecological science perspective, while inter-and transdisciplinary approaches including examination of the role of people were less common. This points to a need to move from single-topic to landscape-level approaches with a broader integration of different disciplines and perspectives.
In the face of unsustainable land-use changes including intensified agricultural production and land abandonment, agroforestry systems have the potential to support a diversity of social and ecological functions in agricultural landscapes. Mediterranean agroforestry landscapes have been conserved through traditional practices, and new concepts are necessary to assure the viability of these practices. Labels bear the opportunity to indicate sustainable management along the supply chain and, at the same time, generate higher incomes for sustainably producing farms. We have used an expert-based Delphi survey with three iterative surveys to analyse (1) the relevance of different sustainability aspects in agroforestry systems, (2) the suitability of derived indicators for labelling, and (3) the specific potentials and barriers for labelling agroforestry production or ecological UN Sustainable Development Goal (SDG)—are considered relevant for agroforestry systems. Translating these goals into suitable indicators is the more challenging step, revealing the lack of appropriate data, the complexity of sustainability challenges, and a low willingness for producers to adapt their practices as key limiting factors. The assessment of the labelling schemes indicated coherent responses despite the diverse backgrounds of participants. Alongside eco-labels and social labels, Geographic Indications were suggested as the most suitable options for the agroforestry context, although these have not been invented for reflecting sustainability in the first place. Although experts are highly aware of social-cultural values of agroforestry systems, they see little potential to use those social-cultural aspects for labelling agroforestry products. Initial costs and missing consumer awareness for agroforestry are major reasons for not joining labelling schemes. We discuss the possibility of an agroforestry label and why elements of Geographic Indication labels may fit well for this purpose.
Implementing the European Green Deal and transforming agricultural practices requires a wider and amplified policy toolbox. As many sustainability considerations are context-dependent, there is a need for instruments, which take individual characteristics of production landscapes into account. Food products with a particularly strong relationship to their landscape of origin can be marketed under the “Protected Designation of Origin” label (PDO). In this article, we analyze synergies between PDO production and regional sustainable development by assessing to what extent social-ecological landscape characteristics appear in landscapes with PDO-labeled food production systems. Building upon 12 social-ecological variables we defined three landscape characteristics influential for the presence of PDOs by using a principal component analysis. By running regression models combining those characteristic landscapes with the spatial distribution of PDO certification we were able to explore linkages between landscapes and products. Additionally, a geographically weighted regression delivered insights into the regional differences and product-specific relationships throughout the EU countries. Overall, we could prove the assumed positive correlation between PDO production and ecologically valuable landscapes. Further, we showed that mostly meat PDOs coincide with landscapes influenced by structural change, while cheese PDOs are not well captured by our models despite their large number. We can conclude that PDOs have the potential to jointly support conservation and rural development, especially when they would be tied to sustainable management standards in the future.
The Geographical Indications (GIs) scheme is the EU’s primary policy tool for increasing the market values of geographically distinct food products. Although GIs are linked to the landscapes of food production, little is known about the social-ecological values they represent, mainly due to a lack of spatial data. In this study, we, therefore, mapped all 638 food products labeled as Protected Designations of Origin (PDOs), using NUTS-3 areas as proxies for their actual extent, and correlated their distribution with 13 social-ecological indicators. By compiling this novel dataset, we show that the presence of PDOs strongly overlaps with environmental and cultural values. We reveal positive correlations of PDO frequency with high nature value farmland, semi-natural agriculture, tourism, and cultural heritage indicators. Further, we find that PDOs occur more often in economically weaker areas with older and declining populations. Besides differences in PDO distribution between northern and southern EU countries, we find different correlation patterns across the four largest food categories. For example, cheese and meat products are less correlated to environmental values compared to oils and fats, or fruit, vegetables and cereals. On that basis, we identify the potential of PDOs to support structurally deprived areas and propose PDOs as entry points for sustainable transformation and rural development policies—while simultaneously contributing to the conservation of cultural landscapes and their associated environmental values. As outlined in the Green Deal of the European Union and its Farm to Fork strategy, PDOs should be a part of this transformation. Based on the results of this study, we discuss more specifically for which production systems and under what enabling conditions PDOs are fit for this challenge. We recommend that future governance interventions for a sustainable transformation of EU’s agriculture should take the differences across regions and product categories into account.
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