ABSTRACT
Wood-pastures are important elements of European cultural identity and play a crucial ecological role both at local and landscape scales. The existing wood-pasture literature has provided an in depth understanding of their ecological, cultural and sometimes economical value (for example Rigueiro-Rodriguez et al., 2009; Campos et al., 2013; Rotherham, 2013). However, this literature has been largely focused on the north-western and southern European situation, most notably the UK and Spain. Central and eastern Europe, where wood-pastures are also common, has been little studied to date. A common feature of wood-pastures all over Europe is their decline. The major drivers of this process are cultural, institutional and developmental changes occurring across Europe in the past century, though they currently seem to be most powerful in the eastern and southern part of the continent. The conservation of European wood-pastures therefore needs to address not only the ecological dimension, but also the institutional and social challenges around these landscapes. Public policies also play an important role because many European wood-pastures have been lost due to policies that failed to value, or actively devalued them, and the future condition of wood-pastures will depend on policies that recognise their particularities.
