The ecological values of traditional land use in low-lying coastal environments: The example of the Aiguamolls de l'Emporda, Costa Brava

Traditional strategies of resource use in lowland coastal areas may play a very significant role in modern environmental management since, in many ways, the cultural and biological diversity peculiar to these ecosystems that we now wish to protect are the product of human efforts rather than the product of nature alone. We will illustrate this using the example of the so-called closes (enclosures) in the Natural Park of the Aiguamolls de l'Emporda (Catalonia, Spain). Closes are pasture fields surrounded by tree screens that remain inundated part of the year but that can be used for cattle grazing during the rest of the time. Because of agricultural modernization in the 1960s and 1970s many closes were turned into permanent agricultural fields. Since the creation of the Natural Park in 1983, there has been an attempt to recover these traditional land uses although not without some opposition by the farming sector.