Launching the project "(Re)thinking the management of open spaces and extensive livestock in the High Pyrenees in the context of climate change" (RePiCa)

The project "(Re)thinking the management of open spaces and extensive livestock farming in the Alt Pirineu in the context of climate change" (RePiCa) has recently been launched, focusing on the landscape and livestock farming in the Alt Pirineu Natural Park. This is a two-year research project for the Mitigation and Adaptation to Climate Change of the AGAUR, Generalitat de Catalunya. Its backbone is the rethinking of extensive grazing activity in the high Pyrenean mountains, in the context of current climatic, social and economic challenges. To this end, a) it starts by analysing livestock activity and the use of fire from prehistoric times to the present day, by studying landscape changes and different archaeological and palaeoecological sources of information; b) it includes the study of current livestock activity and its trends, together with the associated social and anthropological changes; c) analyses the conservation status of mountain open spaces, focusing on some faunal groups, habitats and soils, to understand their adaptive capacity and resilience to global change; d) and will assess atmospheric quality in response to forest fires and prescribed burning, and their impact on health. The integration of the results of all these activities through GIS tools will lead to the development of indicators and finally a RePiCa index to assess the conservation status of open spaces at a regional scale. 

The team developing this project is made up of 37 researchers from a wide range of organisations (UAB, UB, CSIC, CREAF, UVic-UCC, UdL, Museu de Ciències Naturals de Granollers), as well as management agents and other organisations (PNAP, PNAESM, XN2000, etc.) and professionals from the livestock sector, coordinated by Dr. Anna Badia, from the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona. The participating team from the UB, made up of different members of the GEOVEG group and IRBio, will deal with aspects related to habitat quality. To do so, it will use detailed habitat mapping of sites subject to contrasting grazing regimes and will carry out analyses of vegetation and soils.