Land-use changes in mountain areas

In many mountain areas of the world land-use changes are occurring rapidly, and are often characterised by an increasing exploitation of resources, increasing habitat fragmentation and a reduction of biodiversity. Only in regions where little socio-economic changes have taken place the traditional character of a highly diverse landscape has been preserved on a larger scale. Land-use changes in European mountain areas are frequently characterised by an abandonment of mowed or grazed grassland and an increase in the intensity of land use in a few well accessible areas. The symposium showed up case studies of how land-use changes affect the structure and functioning of ecosystems and landscapes (biodiversity, soil organic matter, biogeochemical and hydrological cycles). New methods and approaches of ecosystem research and landscape ecology and their application to complex mountain terrain were discussed (up- and down-scaling of processes by mathematical modelling, remote sensing, GIS). Finally, requirements for future research on land-use changes in mountain areas were defined. It was recognised that future approaches should be trans-disciplinary and trans-sectoral and initiate a dialogue between scientists from the fields of human and natural sciences and decision-makers, practitioners and farmers in the conception, implementation and monitoring of research, which contributes to a sustainable development in the ecologically sensitive mountain areas.