Ecological Adaptation of Traditional Land Uses in the Spanish Pyrenees

Land-Use Changes in the Spanish Pyrenees

“…It is, therefore, a rural economy with agriculture based on cereals. This has led Puigdefabregas and Fillat (1986) to conclude that Pyrenean agriculture is, in fact, a Mediterranean agricultural system adapted to a mountain environment. Secondly, the marked imbalance between summer pasturing resources and cultivable land, between livestock production and food supplies for the people, reached a maximum in the valleys that were devoted to stock raising, such as the Tena andAnso valleys (Balcells, 1983).…”

“…It is concluded that the expansion of cultivation and the conversion of slopes for intermittent cropping was not only to feed a growing population but also to provide supplies of stubble that could be used to feed sheep in autumn (Puigdefabregas and Fillat, 1986). Spring and autumn were the crucial times for the supply offodder to sheep; at the end of spring when sheep returned from the plains, they spent two or three weeks in the Prepyrenees in aborrales awaiting the opening of the summer pastures (Puigdefabregas and Balcells, 1966).…”

“…On the lower slopes, stonewalled terraces were built on steep gradients in order to increase the are a under permanent cultivation and to protect the gTound against torrential precipitation, which is increasingly more frequent towards the east. Water diversions were also built in order to prevent soil runoff, because cereal cultivation in the mountains involves a high risk of erosion (Puigdefabregas and Fillat, 1986).…”

Diferencias espaciales en la evolución del NDVI en la cuenca alta del Aragón : efectos de los caminos en el uso del suelo

“…El bosque natural (robles, pinos y hayas) quedó limitado a una banda entre 1.400 y 1.700 m.s.n.m. y a algunas umbrías más bajas poco aptas para el cultivo (Puigdefábregas, 1981 El uso del territorio era discriminado en función de la potencialidad productiva y de las limitaciones ambientales de cada tesela, ya que la subsistencia de las explotaciones y del grupo humano en su conjunto dependía del equilibrio entre la explotación y la conservación de los recursos naturales (Puigdefábregas y Fillat, 1986).…”

“A shepherd has to invent”: Poetic analysis of social-ecological change in the cultural landscape of the central Spanish Pyrenees

“…Cultural landscapes and social-ecological change in the Valles Occidentales of the Aragonese Pyrenees The Valles Occidentales of the Central Aragonese Pyrenees, like many European mountain landscapes, have a long history of human habitation, use, and management, leading to an anthropogenic ecosystem largely created and until recently maintained by human activity: cultivation, extensive livestock grazing, wood-cutting, and burning (Puigdefábregas and Fillat 1986, Garcia-Gonzalez et al 1990, García-Ruiz and LasantaMartinez 1990, 1993, Lasanta-Martinez et al 2005, García-Martínez et al 2009). The Valles are a cultural landscape in the sense described by Rössler (2006:334), "at the interface between nature and culture, tangible and intangible heritage, biological and cultural diversity-they represent a closely woven net of relationships, the essence of culture and people's identity.…”