Menaces sur les paysages forestiers méditerranéens d'ici la fin du 21ème siècle

International audienceScenic landscapes are part of the global image of the Mediterranean Basin, but they are challenged by climate change in the 21st century. Vegetation levels are questioned by climate scenarios: although adapted to drought, plants and particularly tree species may not be able to follow the fast shift of their potential distribution area imposed by higher temperatures and rainfall decrease. In this chapter, we present the bases of present balance between climate and vegetation levels, an insight into recent evolutions of Mediterranean landscapes and some examples of early warning signs of the forecasted deep impact of climate change on these landscapes. Forest productivity should drop sharply and extensive dieback may hit forests stands on regional scale. Supported by scorching heats and severe droughts, wildfires are likely to step up in number, frequency and size. As a result of combined changes in climate and fire regimes, matorrals and steppes are expected to gain ground against wooded land, with dramatic social and economical consequences.Les paysages forestiers font partie de l'image du bassin méditerranéen, mais ils sont menacés par le changement climatique. Les étages de végétation préexistants sont remis en cause et pourraient ne pas suivre le déplacement de leurs aires bioclimatiques. Nous présentons dans ce chapitre les bases de l'équilibre actuel entre climat et végétation, les évolutions récentes, quelques exemples de signes avant-coureurs des changements prévisibles : baisses de productivité, dépérissements, extension et fréquence accrue des incendies de forêt. Des paysages de garrigue pourraient à terme remplacer les zones forestières, avec de graves conséquences sociales et économiques

Tourist perceptions and uses of urban green infrastructure:An exploratory cross-cultural investigation

nr. 126624Urban Green Infrastructure (UGI) serves both inhabitants’ and visitors’ numerous and various needs. This research aimed to enhance knowledge regarding the role of UGI in urban tourism. The research questions addressed tourists’ perceptions of UGI, their understanding and uses of UGI, and the ways that this understanding influenced their travel choice to specific urban destinations. A cross-cultural comparative study among urban tourists was carried out in eight European countries. The selection of case studies followed a roughly comparative logic, employing the same on-site questionnaire survey administered in a sample of large and medium size cities in Southern European, Central European and Northern European countries. Looking from the perspective of the tourists’ countries of origin, our findings validate a well-established trend in international tourism, namely the fact that neighbouring countries tend to be the most significant tourist markets of an urban destination. The other major finding confirmed the most well-known tourist movement patterns of Northern and Central Europeans travelling to the Mediterranean for tourism purposes. While the study revealed that the majority of the tourists interviewed were not very familiar with the term ‘Green Infrastructure’, nor with specific UGI features offered in the visited cities, the importance of UGI was acknowledged and viewed in a mostly very positive light. The majority of respondents enjoyed visiting UGI and used it for some light physical activity or for purposes of relaxation, socialization, and in order to explore the culture and society of the destination city. The fact that most UGI in the case study cities is located around or within a short distance from important heritage sites provided UGI with an indirect possibility of being included in the tourists’ visiting plans. In conclusion, the results of this study may prove to be very helpful to local and regional authorities in [...]Miškų ir ekologijos fakultetasVytauto Didžiojo universiteta

The Challenge of Tourism in Terraced Landscapes

Terraced landscapes contain and produce natural and cultural val-ues which tend to be highly relevant to tourism. The variable inter-actions developing between the tourism industry and local agricul-tural systems sustaining terraced cultures may have different conse-quences on both local development and tourism trends. After a brief theoretical introduction into landscape-tourism interrelationships, this chapter addresses the long array of circumstances and conse-quences of tourism development in terraced landscapes. With the aid of a series of diagrams which serve as its analytical framework, the chapter lays out and discusses the empirical circumstances and types of challenges stemming from different types of tourism in such landscapes, in terms of polarities: a) types of landscape uses from the demand side of tourism, b) impacts of tourism on the agri-cultural system of these landscapes and c) impacts of tourism on the socio-economic system of terraced landscapes. Both risks and op-portunities incurred by tourism impacts on visited landscapes are especially pressing in the case of terraced landscapes, running the full range from most negative (i.e. destruction) to most positive (i.e. rejuvenation) possible consequences. Even though the diagrams used in this chapter present mass and mild tourism as polarities, they serve as a basis for elaboration on the attractions and expecta-tions of tourists and local communities, in such cases, and on land-scape-related tourism consequences on local agricultural and broader local/ regional socio-economic systems. They also allow for some conclusive remarks on the environmental, economic and social/ cultural sustainability of terraced-landscape tourism, in the context of broader local/ regional development, while laying the ground for further analysis

Dynamics in national agri-environmental policy implementation under changing EU policy priorities: Does one size fit all?

Over the past 30 years, Agri-Environmental Policies (AEP) in the EU have developed with relative national autonomy and according to the subsidiarity principle. The environmental directives represent an increase in EU-level environmental ambitions and challenge the current implementation of EU AEP by creating an increasingly demanding set of regulations with which each member state must comply. National AEP implementation may, however, maintain original characteristics and fail to adopt or transform as EU policy implementation proceeds or when EU policies develop. This creates a potential gap between EU policies and national policy implementation resulting in the ensuing national policy dynamics and adaptations becoming issues of interest. This raises a central question regarding the extent to which national AEP implementation can help us predict whether AEP will be suitable to achieve environmental directive objectives nationally in the future. In this paper, we first investigate the dynamics in the implementation of national Agri-Environmental Schemes (AES) through changes in (i) AES policy objectives over time, (ii) administrative implementation structures, and (iii) administrative policy decision structures in the Netherlands, Denmark, Greece, Austria and Romania. Second, we examine the extent to which various factors have influenced the development of national policies over time. The study identifies development based on the theory of ‘process of institutional change’, i.e. we qualitatively estimate the costs of change based on proposed factors including economic conditions in relation to AES implementation, political institutional capacity, policy legacy, policy preferences, and current discourse. On this background, we identify differences in implementation strategies or outcomes in terms of inertia, absorption and transformation, which are characteristic of the national responses to changing AEP at the EU level. We discuss AES dynamics; whether policy content or structures should be in focus for future policy design and the implications of these findings for the future role of AEP in fulfilling environmental directives and argue why a one size fits all rule does not adequately cover current AES development