Importance of wooded, agricultural and pastoral lands
in Mediterranean

Key to sustainable development

Almost ten thousand years of increasingly intensive human presence have radically changed the landscapes around the Mediterranean. Man has gradually transformed them into a complex mosaic of horticulture, fields, vineyards, olive groves, orchards, range lands, semi-natural forests, scrub and dry grasslands. This continuous, active human presence has played a major role in the development of the Mediterranean’s diverse ecosystems.

By providing many renewable resources, woodlands have always played an important role in the day-to-day lives of the Mediterranean peoples and have been an integral part of their socio-economic activities.

Land use

Trees and forests continue to be an effective or potential source of such resources in a variety of areas, including agriculture, livestock production, industry, handicrafts, urbanism and leisure. They contribute to the development of numerous activities and jobs in rural areas and help combat poverty. Finally, they are essential for the functioning of Mediterranean ecosystems, contributing to the renewal and conservation of essential resources such as water (watershed management), wood and non wood forest products (forestry), soils (erosion and desertification control), biological diversity and Mediterranean landscapes.

Nowadays, increasingly rapid changes no longer allow woodland renewal process to take place, with serious negative consequences for the environment. High population density and urbanisation in the coastal areas, the development of mass tourism, the sharp rise in consumption and intensive farming practices have increased demand for natural resources such as water, soil and vegetation.

Although woodlands cover more than 37% of non-desert lands in the northern Mediterranean, they onlycover 14% of land in the south and 5% of land in eastern Mediterranean.
This can be explained naturally by wide variations in aridity (the main feature of the Mediterranean climate being the severity of the summer drought), but also by socio-economic differences:

• In the northern part of the Mediterranean Basin, the migration of traditionally rural populations to the cities and the concentration of agricultural production and forestry in the most fertile, best irrigated and most accessible areas have left many Mediterranean woodlands lying idle. This has led to a fairly rapid increase in the area of the forests and in the standing volume. Such conditions are suitable for the establishment and development of groups of rare species, formerly found in ancient forests, but not often present in the Mediterranean nowadays. However, this may lead to a loss of heterogeneity, not conducive to high levels of biological diversity and landscape diversity, and would certainly increase fire risks.

• The southern and eastern parts of the Mediterranean Basin are still home to many rural communities, some of which are still growing. Nowadays, the woodlands that have always been an integral part of agro-pastoral systems are all too often over-exploited. For example, the large number of sheep and goats in the Maghreb - estimated at about 50 million – has led to over-grazing of the rangelands; fuelwood consumption by the local people has been put at 0.35 m 3 per inhabitant per year.The continuous growth of such requirements often leads to imbalances and spiralling degradation (increasing demands placed on areas less and less capable of meeting them).

Such trends can only be reduced by better integrating forest policies into overall land management policies.

 Silva Mediterranea, a Mediterranean forestry cooperation tool

As far back as 1911, Silva Mediterranea was created by the Mediterranean countries, which recognised the need to work together on common forest problems. It became a statutory body of FAO in 1948.
Silva Mediterranea analyses regional trends in woodland use and draws up a list of common priorities for research and studies for the forestry sector. Based on that list, the member countries regularly determine areas of collaboration where they exchange information and share resources.

In 1993, following the recommendations of the Rio Earth Summit and the Paris World Forestry Congress, Silva Mediterranea prepared the Mediterranean Forest Action Programme to serve as a common reference. Following updating, several of its objectives are currently being implemented through the national forest programmes developed by the Mediterranean countries as part of an international mechanism.

In 2002, in an effort to combat poverty and participate in the implementation of the international conventions on desertification, climate change and biodiversity, and according to the United Nations Forum on Forests action plan, Silva Mediterranea decided to attach top priority to improving the forestry sector’s contribution to sustainable development. FAO has signed a partnership agreement with the Blue Plan in order to strengthen its activities in these areas.

A regional forum in 2005

The future of Mediterranean woodlands is not only influenced by the technical and economic issues of forest production and by environmental protection problems, but also by many sectoral and intersectoral dynamics and by policies integrating rural and urban management.

In order to optimise the responses of the Mediterranean forestry sector to the many expectations regarding sustainable development, public and private operators would have to share the same long-term view of:

• the demands on the many potential uses of forestry resources, by assessing their capacity to meet those demands in terms of sustainable development,
• the ways and means (institutional, human and financial) of adjusting these demands to ensure that they are compatible with each other and within the limits of available resources,
• the value of the uses (active or passive) of Mediterranean woodlands and the direct and indirect beneficiaries of those uses, such that the overall importance of forest functions, services and forest products may be fully appreciated by the decision makers and funding agencies, when they are asked to contribute to the implementation of improvement measures.

In an effort to enable the Mediterranean countries to share their experiences and analyses in this area, a regional forum on “Forestry sector and sustainable development in the Mediterranean: challenges, policies and governance” was jointly organised in 2005 by FAO and Plan Bleu, with the support of France.

See the Blue Plan publications on forest topic.