Future development in Portuguese rural areas: how to manage agricultural support for landscape conservation?

In the southern part of Portugal, in the Alentejo region, land-use is dominated by an agro-silvo-pastoral system, the Montado, corresponding to specific cultural landscapes with high biological, scenic and recreational value. During recent decades, a combination of factors has led this system to change through intensification, extensification and land abandonment,. A new landscape mosaic is evolving on a regional scale, but it is still uncertain to what extent large patches of productive and open Montado will be maintained. Within the accompanying measures of the Common Agricultural Policy, part of the Portuguese agri-environmental support aims at preserving the traditional land-use systems and their resulting landscapes. The Portuguese Ministry of Agriculture is aware of the value of these landscapes and of the need to protect them, and greater support possibilities will be considered in the new agri-environmental package, within Agenda 2000. Although various groups are willing to preserve these landscapes, the measures implemented so far are unco-ordinated and do not assure landscape preservation in the long term. The solution may lie in the use of a holistic approach to consider and integrate the various aspects of these rural landscapes, together with the most effective use of the existing support. (C) 2000 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.