Species-rich Carpathian Grasslands: Mapping, History, Drivers of Change and Conservation

European agriculture is at a crossroads. Continuing the industrial intensification of agricultural production and the associated abandonment of marginal land equals continuing the direct negative environmental impacts on landscape quality and further loss of biodiversity. The second available option is adopting the quality of the landscape and its sustainability as essential criteria for the optimization and management of agricultural production. The main aim of our transdisciplinary project is to support this second option with practical scientific knowledge of environmental and societal potentials regarding sustainable grassland management in the Carpathians using traditional agricultural practices, as well as on which social and institutional features might help embed such management within the modern Slovak economy.

The main objectives of the project:

1) to identify and map biodiversity-rich grassland areas in the Carpathians and related local environmental and social factors;

2) identify and map areas with high environmental and social potential for successful grassland restoration in Slovakia;

3) propose a national strategy for state and non-governmental support regarding ecological restoration, conservation, and management of the identified grassland areas.

The project intends to reach such a comprehensive and practical understanding through a collaborative combination of the latest available earth observation data for the Carpathian region, analytical methods, and tools, but also pioneering field research; all in parallel on behalf of the scientific fields of botany, ecology, geography, remote sensing and social anthropology.

The planned outputs of the project – scientific studies and the proposal of a national strategy to support species-rich grasslands – can, in addition to direct use by contracted domestic recipient organizations (MoE SR and BROZ), also serve as a template for applied research focusing on ecological grassland restoration in Europe and beyond.

For more information, please visit the project’s website HERE.