Campo de Montiel is a region covering some 600,000 hectares in south-central Spain, forming a transition zone between the Sierra Morena and the La Mancha plain. The landscape is dominated by a mosaic of agricultural and forest land comprising Mediterranean crops (mainly olive groves, vineyards and cereals) and open, cultivated pastures of holm oaks, forests and continental Mediterranean scrub. Secular and extensive land use has produced a landscape that blends high levels of biodiversity and culture.
This traditional landscape has undergone rapid change, with implications for climate change and biodiversity. Despite these threats, Campo de Montiel has great potential for implementing measures to address the impacts of climate change and restore lost natural values, restore degraded areas, recover biodiversity and increase carbon sequestration through good practices in restorative forestry and strategic actions in the agricultural landscape aimed at reconciling production with the presence of small forest elements in the landscape, such as hedgerows and forest islands.
The Montiel+Natural project is supported by the Biodiversity Foundation of the Ministry for Ecological Transition and the Demographic Challenge, through the Call for Grants for projects that contribute to the implementation of the National Climate Change Adaptation Plan 2021–2030. This research has been partially funded by the Ministry for Ecological Transition and the Demographic Challenge but does not reflect the views of the Ministry.
Duration: 1 September 2023 – 30 May 2025
Location
Spain.
Campo de Montiel (Ciudad Real and Albacete)
Objetivo
The overall objective of the project is to enhance the resilience and capacity of the Campo de Montiel region to mitigate and adapt to climate change through measures to conserve and restore forest systems and agroecosystems. The proposed actions aim to assess (1) an ecological baseline for the area; the effects of restorative forestry on (2) the Mediterranean scrubland and (3) CAP afforestation schemes in terms of carbon sequestration and storage, the recruitment of new plant species and the recolonisation of fauna; and (4) the design of a network of hedgerows and forest islands within the agricultural landscape to enhance ecological connectivity, biodiversity and resilience. The project will yield replicable models for the management of Mediterranean scrubland and CAP afforestation, and for the integration of agricultural production with small, biodiversity-rich forest elements within the landscape (hedgerows and forest islands).
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