to around 20% in Greece, Serbia or Cyprus
3
). However, human and
environmental challenges are currently exacerbated by certain social-
ecological trends. From a human perspective, a long history of food
production in the region historically drove the rise of rich civilizations.
Presently, food supply issue has become critical in a context of major
demographic growth (more than 500 million of inhabitants around
2025
1
), inadequate achievement of food security targets (Voltz et al.,
2018) and of expected increases in the intensity and frequency of water
scarcity periods under climate change future scenarios (Guiot and
Cramer, 2016). From a bio-physical perspective, the Mediterranean
basin is both one of the 34 global hot-spots of biodiversity (Médail and
Quézel, 1999), and an area strongly threatened by anthropogenic
pressure and climate change (Gauquelin et al., 2018). This situation is
facilitated by a heterogeneous spatial mosaic combining natural de-
signated areas, highly intensive agricultural production and other spe-
cific land uses ((terraces, hedgerows, agro-silvo-pastoral systems…)
frequently resulting from a historic and intensive reshaping of the ori-
ginal environmental conditions (Pinto-Correia and Vos, 2004;Blondel,
2006). Furthermore, it is also becoming apparent how the regional
dynamics of land use change are becoming enacted across nested spatial
scales spanning from the local to the global (Lambin et al., 2006). To
turn the picture even more difficult to grasp, equally high levels of
uncertainty are also detected defining the intricate ways on which
ecosystems, landscapes and societies mutually interact, a problem that
is enhanced by the apparent unpredictability and wicked nature of
social behavior (amplification of risks - e.g. climate refugees) and its
perception (Duckett and Busby, 2013). Resuming, the trajectories of
change in the Mediterranean region are largely defined by the out-
standing heterogeneity of biophysical conditions, land use systems,
multi-functionality and multiple values of landscapes, long-term cul-
tural history, and the hybrid nature of urban-rural relations (Ortiz-
Miranda et al., 2013), resulting in a richness of natural, cultural and
territorial resources that is equaled in few other regions world-wide.
In such a context, the consideration of time-, spatial- and institu-
tional-scales is an essential step to unravel the multiple dynamics of
land and farm systems. In this sense, it is important to point out how the
mosaic of land use (Fig. 1), and related farm systems that can be found
nowadays in the Mediterranean region has been developed throughout
a long cultural and agricultural history (Zeder, 2008). Such history has
resulted in certain paradigmatic cases of good management practices
for high nature-value-farming-systems, whereby apparently conflicting
goals such as food production and biological and cultural heritage
protection have been conciliated (Ferraz de Oliveira et al., 2016).
Nonetheless, the richness of agricultural landscapes in multiple natural
values have too often been the historically contingent result of agri-
cultural production strategies and options (e.g. vineyards, silvo-pastoral
systems including silvo-pastoral Montado and Dehesa in Portugal and
Spain respectively, and olive groves), along with unintended socio-po-
litical circumstances, bio-physical limitations and cultural patterns, and
not indeed the output of conservation policies or planning, which are
too new in the region. As a result of this all,…he current land mosaic
also includes land uses and farming systems that are closely adapted to
the frequent and irregular scarcity of natural resources affecting the
region (Blondel, 2006). Actually this apparent limitation has para-
doxically resulted in highly diverse and unique rural and urban land-
scapes, high levels of biodiversity richness and in similarly rich set of
natural and cultural values associated with traditional Mediterranean
farm systems and rural land uses (Ruiz-Labourdette et al., 2013).
However, such attributes are currently being hampered by the ef-
fects of multiple and mutually intertwining processes of rapid, and at
times even irreversible changes. Such changes are jointly rendering
land and farming systems in the Mediterranean gradually more
homogeneous and intensified (Godinho et al., 2014; Pedroli et al.,
2018), in alignment with what is also a dominating trend in other re-
gions of the world (Rudel et al., 2009). Recent trends of change in-
creasingly dominating in the region include landscape and land use
homogenization or simplification (Geri et al., 2010), rapid agricultural
intensification in the most productive soils or those with access to water
and markets (Caraveli, 2000), farm concentration and financialization
(Gertel and Sippel, 2016), and the de-territorialization of agriculture. In
contrast with the former, the abandonment of marginal and less agri-
culturally productive areas (Caraveli, 2000) is also taking place in the
region.
In parallel, the vastness of the Mediterranean agricultural heritage,
including its many valuable cultural and natural features (Catsadorakis,
2007), indicates to the resilience of traditional farm and land systems in
this context, and represents an asset for the future sustainability of the
region. Paradoxically, this richness in natural and cultural heritage may
easily result in a level of territorial complexity and uncertainty which is
at the source of many wicked challenges that have remained a concern
for land use and landscape planning for various decades (Alden, 2001),
and which are indeed a main barrier to advance towards increased le-
vels of sustainability and resilience (Duckett et al., 2016;Guimarães
et al., 2018). Furthermore, one should also be reminded that human
behaviour, when wrongly oriented, may drive disturbance whilst, when
rightly geared, can provide with social, economic and technical
knowledge that could potentially increase resilience (Ahnström et al.,
2013). Given the fragility and vulnerability of the Mediterranean region
towards increasing climate constraints (Guiot and Cramer, 2016), along
with other challenges related to water scarcity and irregularity (Iglesias
et al., 2007), biodiversity loss (Médail and Quézel, 1999) and socio-
economic marginality (Blöss et al., 2018), another important respon-
sibility may be placed upon the region: leading by example in devising
social behaviours and more effective management options and policies
for the mitigation and adaptation of global changes.
1.2. Hot challenges for Mediterranean land and farm systems dynamics
Within such a regional context, a series of trends are detected that
demand being tackled more urgently and effectively, including:
- Environmental challenges are exacerbated in global hot spots of
biodiversity, in which the Mediterranean region has a key respon-
sibility due to its biodiversity' density and endemism (Médail and
Quézel, 1999).
- Climate processes are especially unpredictable and impactful (Guiot
and Cramer, 2016), currently posing a threat towards the sustain-
ability of increasingly scarce resources, especially water (Laraus,
2004) and biodiversity (Barredo et al., 2016). These are both es-
sential components of natural capital and potential sources of eco-
system services in farming systems and agricultural landscapes
(Mace et al., 2012;Duru et al., 2015;Landis, 2017). Irreversible
processes such as desertification and land degradation, which are
especially acute in the Mediterranean region, could drastically
change the conditions for natural life, agriculture and, ultimately,
for human societies.
- Along with extreme social and economic inequalities that are ex-
emplified in the condition of this region as a frontier between the
Global North and South (Blöss et al., 2018), the Mediterranean re-
gion has lately experienced a huge demographic and urban rate of
growth, mainly in coastal areas, potentially adding even more
pressure to food security and environmental sustainability (Zdruli,
2014).
The severity and wickedness of the challenges stemming from these
combined trends demand that scientists work together with actors from
the policy, financial, farming, commercial and lobbying realms to
jointly co-generate new methods and approaches that transcend tradi-
tional disciplinary, or model approaches to connecting knowledge
http://agreste.agriculture.gouv.fr/IMG/pdf_analyse341109.pdf
J. Muñoz-Rojas, et al. Land Use Policy 88 (2019) 104082
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