International audienceIn a period of agricultural decline in the uplands of Europe, agriculture is ceasing to provide the primary rationale for the organisation, utilisation and functioning of rural space. Policy reform, market trends and changes to the way citizens and consumers think about the countryside all suggest a need for thinking strategically about the future development of these areas. However, without a broad involvement of stakeholders, land use conflicts, and social and cultural conflicts in general, may increase. Involving stakeholders in upland areas can be facilitated by using scenario technique and by discussing alternative futures in local stakeholder panels. In this paper we present four scenarios of land-use change for the year 2030, and their assessments by stakeholder panels in Scotland, France, Norway, Switzerland, Slovakia and Greece. The aim of the paper is to explore the ways in which stakeholders in these locations advocate and assess these scenarios. We also explore how stakeholders in different countries weight the visual landscape impacts, the livelihood and biodiversity aspects of the scenarios in their assessment, and the reasons for their prioritising. The cross-country analysis shows that stakeholders across the study areas are united in their overall rejection of agricultural liberalisation, advocating a production-oriented, but multifunctional and environmentally-friendly agriculture that maintains landscapes and biodiversity

Long-term societal trends which include decreasing population in structurally poorer regions and changes in agricultural policies have been leading to land abandonment in various regions of Europe. One of the consequences of this development includes spontaneous forest regeneration of formerly open-land habitats with likely significant effects on plant and animal diversity. We assess potential effects of agricultural decline in Switzerland (41,000 km 2) and potential impacts on the spatial distribution of seven open-land species (insects, reptile, birds) under land-use change scenarios: (1) a businessas-usual scenario that extrapolates trends observed during the last 15 years into the future, (2) a liberalisation scenario with limited regulation, and (3) a lowered agricultural production scenario fostering conservation. All scenarios were developed in collaboration with socioeconomists. Results show that spontaneous reforestation is potentially minor in the lowlands since combinations of socioeconomic (better accessibility), topographic (less steep slopes), and climatic factors (longer growing seasons) favour agricultural use and make land abandonment less likely. Land abandonment, spontaneous reforestation, and subsequent loss of open-land, however, are potentially pronounced in mountainous areas except where tourism is a major source of income. Here, socioeconomic and natural conditions for cultivation are more difficult, leading to higher abandonment and thus reforestation likelihood. Evaluations for openland species core habitats indicate pronounced spatial segregation of expected landscape change. Habitat losses (up to 59%) are observed throughout the country, particularly at high elevation sites in the Northern Alps. Habitat gains under the lowered agricultural production scenario range between 12 and 41% and are primarily observed for the Plateau and the Northern Alps. Keywords Agricultural decline Á Habitat suitability maps Á Species habitat distribution modelling Á Scenarios of land use change Á Switzerland

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Land abandonment followed by spontaneous reforestation has been an ongoing process in the Swiss Alps, especially on steep and relatively inaccessible slopes and on alpine summering pastures. This study aims to identify and explain differences in preferences towards potential future landscapes: 1) between landscape settings at different elevation belts (e.g. valley bottom, forest clearings at medium elevations, alpine pastures above the forest belt); 2) between a group of local residents and the general Swiss population; and 3) between social groups within the Swiss population. A random sample of the general Swiss population and group of local residents assessed photo manipulations of different settings in an alpine region depicting for each setting a landscape similar to the present one, a landscape optimized for biodiversity conservation, an initial stage of spontaneous reforestation, and an advanced stage of spontaneous reforestation. We discuss differences between the group of local residents and the Swiss population regarding the assessment and interpretation of some photo manipulations, but also between social groups within the Swiss population. We found that low-intensity land use is visually preferred over intensive land-use and reforested landscapes. Spontaneous reforestation is less liked at higher elevations than at lower elevations. This implies that from a visual-aesthetic point of view, the gap in public funding between lower lying agricultural land and alpine pastures, seems to be not justified.

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