La forestación de tierras agrícolas: balance de un instrumento de política forestal para el cambio del uso de la tierra

Abstract

Se han cumplido 25 años del inicio del programa de forestación de tierras agrarias con motivo de la reforma de la Política Agrícola Comunitaria (PAC) en 1992. El objetivo de este estudio es realizar un análisis global, a nivel de Comunidad Autónoma, que permita identificar los elementos más característicos del programa, como paso previo a futuros análisis más detallados. A partir del conocimiento del marco normativo se analiza la superficie forestada, las especies utilizadas, el tipo de tierras forestadas y su superficie media. La superficie total forestada ha superado las 730 mil hectáreas, lo que implica que ha sido el programa de mayor impacto en España de ayudas a la repoblación a los propietarios particulares. Castilla y León ha forestado el 35% de la superficie total . El 65% de esta superficie se forestó en el periodo 1993-99 y solo un 8% a partir de 2007. El comportamiento de la superficie forestada por cada Comunidad Autónoma, en el periodo 1993-99, ha mostrado una relación con la superficie total de cultivos existentes en cada comunidad al inicio del programa. El 15% de la superficie forestada fue con especies de crecimiento rápido, el 50% de masas monoespecíficas de especies de crecimiento lento, con un equilibro entre el uso de coníferas y frondosas y el resto correspondió a masas mixtas con un predominio de frondosas. Las tierras forestadas correspondieron, mayoritariamente, a cultivos herbáceos de secano o a eriales a pastos. La superficie media fue de 12 hectáreas, con una gran variabilidad entre Comunidades Autónomas.

Targeted policy proposals for managing spontaneous forest expansion in the Mediterranean

“…Forest coalescence provides more habitat for forest-dependent species (Mangas et al, 2008;Regos et al, 2016) Biodiversity conservation and enhancement (Regos et al, 2016;Van Der Plas et al, 2016) Increasing forest cover may lead to landscape homogenisation, with reduced landscape-level multifunctionality and likely losses of farmland species (Burrascano et al, 2016;Carrascal et al, 2014;Otero et al, 2015) Forest expansion may reduce fragmentation and provide habitats for forest specialist species Land-use legacies seem to determine whether the overall/final impact of forest expansion is positive or negative Forest expansion leads to a sharper separation between forest and arable land, resulting in fewer habitats for species adapted to a biodiversityrich anthropogenic landscape, with an overall decrease in β-diversity forestation of agricultural land has been carried out since the 1990s, aiming to deliver environmental benefits and prevent certain land from being cultivated. In Spain, forest cover increased by 3.5 million ha in the period of 1990-2013; the areas afforested under CAP account for roughly 20% of this increase (Vadell et al, 2019). Despite the fact that positive effects on bird communities were revealed (Santos et al, 2006), these patches do not necessarily enhance the richness of woodland species (Carrascal et al, 2014).…”

“…Large‐scale afforestation of agricultural land has been carried out since the 1990s, aiming to deliver environmental benefits and prevent certain land from being cultivated. In Spain, forest cover increased by 3.5 million ha in the period of 1990–2013; the areas afforested under CAP account for roughly 20% of this increase (Vadell et al., 2019). Despite the fact that positive effects on bird communities were revealed (Santos et al., 2006), these patches do not necessarily enhance the richness of woodland species (Carrascal et al, 2014).…”

Land use/cover change analysis in the Mediterranean region: a regional case study of forest evolution in Castelló (Spain) over 50 years

“…Traditionally, abandoned agricultural land presents considerable problems in the way they are treated in different Spanish statistics and in their legal status as forest or agricultural land. As this research is focusing on LULC types and not plots, the consideration of AA as a transitional cover following other authors (Arnaez et al, 2011;Vadell et al, 2019), means that this land-cover type of Level I cannot be assigned neither to agricultural uses nor to forest covers.…”

The Role of Recent (1985–2014) Patterns of Land Abandonment and Environmental Factors in the Establishment and Growth of Secondary Forests in the Iberian Peninsula

“…This reflects the current great forest dynamism in the Iberian Peninsula [66], which may continue in the near future [67], compared to other regions of Europe where forest cover is stabilising [4,64,68]. This phenomenon can be attributed to the massive cropland abandonment that occurred in southern (and eastern) Europe during the application of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) during 1988-2008, which forced agriculture to be more competitive in global markets [33,64,69,70] and prompted the afforestation of former croplands (e.g., the program Programa de Forestación de Tierras Agrarias (FTA) in Spain [71]).…”

“…This may be attributed to the prioritisation of broadleaf species (i.e., Quercus spp.) in the FTA program: monospecific stands of broadleaf species have represented 50% of the total afforested area in Spain since 1992, while stands of needleleaf species have represented only 15% [71]. Nevertheless, it could also be due to the different responses of broadleaf and needleleaf species to the biophysical attributes of abandoned land, which is a consideration that is discussed in more detail below.…”