3rd World Congress of Environmental History

Land-use patterns and biodiversity location: The role of agricultural mosaics (land sharing) and nature protected areas (land spring) in Catalonia (1956-2009) and Costa Rica (1986-2014)

• In Event: Biocultural Heritages: When History Matters for the Ecosystem Services provided by Biodiversity Conservation in Agroecological Landscapes

Abstract

Using novel methodological approaches to assess how the heterogeneous landscapes created by complex agroecosystems can host a relevant share of functional biodiversity, the communication will present the results obtained in several recent case studies in Catalonia, Spain (1956-2009) and Costa Rica (1986-2014) that statistically correlate landscape ecology indicators accounted in a set of cells of a grid in past and present land cover digital maps with the biodiversity observations currently made in the same cells. Despite founding significant differences between Mediterranean and Tropical landscapes, the results confirm that biodiversity is located both in nature protected areas and the heterogeneous landscape mosaics of complex agroecosystems. Conversely, industrial monocultures as well as rural abandonment have a negative ecological impact, whereas wildlife-friendly agroecology farming plays a vital role either to keep farm-associated biodiversity or to provide ecological connectivity among nature protected areas.

Authors

• Enric Tello, University of Barcelona

• Joan Marull, Barcelona Institute of Regional and Metropolitan Studies at the Autonomous University of Barcelona