A Contextual Analysis of Land-Use and Vegetation Changes in Two Wooded Pastures in the Swiss Jura Mountains

Abstract

This study examines the effects of land-use policies and natural events on the evolution of two wooded pastures in the Jura Mountains in Switzerland between 1934 and 2000. The socioeconomic context and the local conditions were seen as major driving forces influencing land management practices which in turn redefined land-use policies. We studied the dynamics of the Jura Mountains' wooded pastures, combining a thorough knowledge of the historic context with aerial image analysis. Besides pointing out general milestones in the evolution of Swiss land policy, we compiled chronicles on the management for both study sites on the basis of archives and interviews. Aerial images taken at time intervals of approximately 15 years were chosen to identify land-cover changes. The method used to analyze them relied on a structural classification of phytocoenoses, thus allowing the determination of four categories of tree-cover densities ranging from unwooded pastures to ungrazed forest. We reported overall aerial changes for each tree density class as well as spatial transitions from one category to another. The combination of spatial statistics with qualitative data depicting the evolution of the historic context gives a better understanding of the land-use changes and their rationale. The most important changes in tree density occurred during World War II and resulted in a more open landscape. The intensive use of wooded pastures during the war was the consequence of a high demand for wood and food resources. Postwar protectionist regulations, agricultural subsidies, and technical improvements maintained considerable pressure on wooded pastures. Storms and drought episodes further exacerbated this process in some areas. The trend then reversed from the 1970s onwards because of the limitations put on milk production and the falling price of wood. This resulted in a more extensive use of pastures, leading to tree encroachment. However, remote sites were more impacted than pastures closer to inhabited areas, which exhibited a trend towards more segregation between grassland and densely wooded pastures. With both extensification and segregation of land use, the complex vegetation mosaic and the landscape diversity that characterize wooded pastures are threatened but still offer good economic opportunities that call for differentiated management strategies

Sustainable Land-use Practices in European Mountain Regions under Global Change: an Integrated Research Approach

“…The importance of historical aspects in the analysis of landscape changes in wooded pastures is also addressed by Chételat et al (2013). These authors provide an analysis of land-use transitions in silvopastoral landscapes.…”

Reviving wood-pastures for biodiversity and people: A case study from western Estonia

“…Since their origin in Europe in the Holocene (Bergmeier et al 2010), they have developed as multifunctional resources, shaped by the local needs of humans, local social and environmental factors, grazing intensity, and type of livestock (Chételat et al 2013;Hartel and Plieninger 2014). The resulting mosaic of grassland with shrubs and trees of different ages as well as variable light and shade conditions provides important semi-open and semi-natural habitats for a wide range of species (Bergmeier and Garbarino 2014;Falk 2014;.…”

The history and natural regeneration of a secondary oak-beech woodland on a former wood-pasture in Hungary

“…The 20th-21st centuries have been witnessing a worldwide increase in areas occupied by secondary woodland [1][2][3] parallel to the continuous decline in natural old-growth forests spanning thousands of years. Socio-economic changes are the main drivers of secondary woodland development on former arable fields and pastures [4,5].…”

“…Since the industrial revolution, traditional land use has seriously declined in woodland regions of Europe [2,12]. A reduction in grazing intensity is one of the most significant changes in land use during the last 200 years [13][14][15].…”

“…In Central and Eastern Europe, a second stage of abandonment was generated by post-socialist processes [11,17]. After abandonment, both, treeless areas and those with some form of woody vegetation spontaneously developed into closed forest [2,[18][19][20][21]. Some of today's European secondary woodlands are the result of abandoning traditional forestry practices such as coppicing, whereas others have developed on post-agricultural land with or without woody vegetation [20].…”