Trees Forested Landscapes And Grazing Animals

In this comprehensive book, the critical components of the European landscape – forest, parkland, and other grazed landscapes with trees are addressed. The book considers the history of grazed treed landscapes, of large grazing herbivores in Europe, and the implications of the past in shaping our environment today and in the future. Debates on the types of anciently grazed landscapes in Europe, and what they tell us about past and present ecology, have been especially topical and controversial recently. This treatment brings the current discussions and the latest research to a much wider audience. The book breaks new ground in broadening the scope of wood-pasture and woodland research to address sites and ecologies that have previously been overlooked but which hold potential keys to understanding landscape dynamics. Eminent contributors, including Oliver Rackham and Frans Vera, present a text which addresses the importance of history in understanding the past landscape, and the relevance of historical ecology and landscape studies in providing a future vision.

This book has been published as part of a major conference held in Sheffield UK, on the theme of 'Animals, Man and Treescapes' which looked at the interactions between grazing animals, humans and wooded landscapes. It linked community projects and educational outputs throughout the UK, across Europe and beyond. The event promoted landscape ecology conservation through local, national and international initiatives.

The book collects a selection of the papers presented at the meeting held in the context of the Joint Programme on the Links between Biological and Cultural Diversity (JP-BiCuD). Recognizing the inextricable link between biological and cultural diversity, the United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) and the Secretariat of the Convention on Biological Diversity (SCBD) joined forces, and in 2010 launched the Joint Programme on the Links between Biological and Cultural Diversity (JP-BiCuD). The first meeting for the implementation of the JP-BiCuD was held in Florence (Italy) in April 2014 and produced the UNESCO-sCBD Florence Declaration, which highlights the concept of biocultural diversity. The European rural territory is predominantly a biocultural, multi-functional landscape, providing a crucial and effective space for integration of biological and cultural diversity, suggesting the need to revise some of the current strategies for the assessment and management of biodiversity.

The history and past management of trees within woodlands are the main objectives of this book. The authors show four points of view about one theme: silvicultures. Wood pasture systems of South East England and Northern Italy, Spanish pollard forests, and Portuguese montado are great examples of European ancient forests. Reconstruction of forest ecology, management, protection, and the understanding of these silvicultures from different perspectives are the main values of this monograph. The authors would like to make all readers aware of the value of ancient forests as cultural and socioecosystem services.

Understanding the current state and dynamics of any forest is extremely difficult - if not impossible - without recognizing its history. Białowieża Primeval Forest (BPF), located on the border between Poland and Belarus, is one of the best preserved European lowland forests and a subject of myriads of works focusing on countless aspects of its biology, ecology, management. BPF was protected for centuries (15th-18th century) as a game reserve of Polish kings and Lithuanian grand dukes. Being, at that time, a part of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, BPF was subject to long-lasting traditional, multi-functional utilisation characteristic for this part of Europe, including haymaking on forest meadows, traditional bee-keeping and fishing in rivers flowing through forest. This traditional model of management came to an abrupt end due to political change in 1795, when Poland and Grand Duchy of Lithuania ceased to exist in effect of partitioning by neighbouring countries, and the territory of BPF was taken over by the Russian Empire. The new Russian administration, influenced by the German trends in forestry, attempted at introducing the new, science-based forestry model in the BPF throughout the 19th century. The entire 19th century in the history of BPF is a story of struggle between new trends and concepts brought and implemented by new rulers of the land, and the traditional perception of the forest and forest uses, culturally rooted in this area and originating from mediaeval (or older) practices. The book will show the historical background and the outcome of this struggle: the forest’s history in the long 19th century focusing on tracking all cultural imprints, both material (artificial landscapes, introduced alien species, human-induced processes) and immaterial (traditional knowledge of forest and use of forest resources, the political and cultural significance of the forest) that shaped the forest’s current state and picture. Our book will deliver a picture of a crucial moment in forest history, relevant not only to the Central Europe, but to the continent in general. Moment of transition between a royal hunting ground, traditional type of use widespread throughout Europe, to a modern, managed forest. Looking at main obstacles in the management shift, the essential difference in perceptions of the forest and goods it provides in both modes of management, and the implications of the management change for the state of BPF in the long 19th century could help in better understanding the changes that European forests underwent in general.

Dedicated to Martin Bell (University of Reading), this book outlines how wetland and inland environments can be related and investigated using multi-method approaches. Papers fall under three themes: coastal and intertidal archaeology; mobility and human-environment relationships; heritage resource management, nature conservation and rewilding.

It is a widely held belief that a climax vegetation of closed forest systems covered the lowlands of Central and Western Europe before man intervened in prehistoric times to develop agriculture. If this intervention had not taken place, the forest would still be there, and if left the grassland vegetation and fields now present would revert to a natural closed forest state, although with a reduced number of wild species. This book, which an updated and expanded version of the author's 1997 thesis (presented to the Wageningen University, Netherlands), challenges the traditional view, using examples from history, pollen analyses and studies on the ecology of tree and shrub species such as oak and hazel. It tests the hypothesis that the climax vegetation is a closed canopy forest, against the alternative hypothesis that species composition and vegetational succession were governed by large herbivores, and that the Central and Western European lowlands were covered by a park-like landscape consisting of grasslands, scrub, solitary trees and groves bordered by a mantle and fringe vegetation. Comparative information from the eastern USA is also included throughout the book (this was not present in the thesis), because the forests there are commonly regarded as being analogous to the primeval vegetation in Europe. The book is arranged in 7 chapters: (1) General introduction and formulation of the problem; (2) Succession, the climax forest and the role of large herbivores; (3) Palynology, the forest as climax in prehistoric times and the effects of humans; (4) The use of the wilderness from the Middle Ages up to 1900; (5) Spontaneous succession in forest reserves in the lowlands of Western and Central Europe - including examples from France, Germany, Austria, Slovenia, Sweden, Poland; (6) Establishment of trees and shrubs in relation to light and grazing; and (7) Final synthesis and conclusions. Twelve appendices are included giving further information, and there are 67 pages of references and a subject index.

In this how-to guide, ecologist and forest farmer Steve Gabriel explores the philosophy and techniques behind silvopasture - the integration of trees, animals, and forages in a whole-system approach that creates a number of benefits for livestock, farmers, and the environment. This system not only provides a sustainable farm income, but also holds the key to restoring land, building soil carbon, and creating climate resilience.--COVER.