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Semi-natural pastures and meadows

Semi-natural pastures and meadows consist of unsown vegetation that is maintained by livestock grazing and/or mowing, and that has not been substantially modified by intensive fertilisation, drainage or herbicide use.

Semi-natural pastures and meadows are typified by extensive farming using traditional breeds of livestock, and have a relatively low productivity compared with intensively managed grasslands. They are central to the concept of High Nature Value farming and are profoundly valuable for the large range of ecosystem services they provide. For example, globally more carbon is stored in grasslands than in forests. Promoting their protection and sustainable management are central concerns of EFNCP.

Semi-natural pastures include not only grasslands but also other vegetation communities used for grazing and browsing, such as heathlands, scrublands and wood pastures. Overall, these various semi-natural communities make up 20% of the habitats listed on Annex 1 of the Habitats Directive, and all require continued grazing and/or mowing for their maintenance.

Because of European trends towards agricultural intensification on better land and abandonment of marginal land, these habitats are more threatened and in worse condition than other types of habitats, such as forests.

Policy issues

A set of EU policy instruments has developed over the past 25 years that aims to protect and support grasslands for their environmental value, but at present these are neither effective, coherent nor coordinated.

Appropriate definition and identification of semi-natural pastures and meadows are essential preconditions for the targeting of both protection and support. This is a major weakness at present.

Farmland. EU rules are based on a concept of ‘farmland’ which sees pasture as only grass, which does not apply in many HNV farming areas. Trees and shrubs are often characterised as ‘unwanted vegetation’ yet these semi-natural vegetation types are very important sources of forage for many traditional farming systems. CAP rules, and their implementation in certain Member States, forbid the payment of support on some semi-natural pastures and meadows, often those types of greatest environmental value. These rules can lead to damaging removal of vegetation to gain payment, but frequently just lead to abandonment – the opposite of what the CAP is meant to achieve.

Permanent pasture. EU rules define permanent pasture as being over 5 years old. This wrongly ascribes the same value to intensive 6-years old sown grassland as to ancient pastures never ploughed in human memory. Some Member States, such as the UK, call sown grasslands permanent even in the year of reseeding as long as they go straight from grass back to grass. Thus current definitions prevent adequate targeting of support on the truly valuable grasslands, while possibly putting too many pointless controls on more intensive farmers. CAP rules preserving the area of permanent pasture at Member State level can allow a wholesale shift from old, biodiverse, grasslands to intensive sown pastures. To address this, EFNCP has released a new report and co-hosted an event in Brussels in May 2011

Semi-natural vegetation. Activities likely to lead to the agricultural intensification of semi-natural and uncultivated land are potentially subject to Environmental Impact Assessment under the EIA Directive (the exact rules are set by Member States). But there is no EU definition of semi-natural vegetation, and in most countries the rules are applied in such a way as to provide almost no protection for semi-natural pastures and meadows.

Highly biodiverse grassland. The Renewable Energy Directive excludes biofuels planted on what had been ‘highly-biodiverse grasslands’ from being counted against Member States’ renewables targets. This new grasslands term does not coincide with definitions in other EU instruments, such as EIA Directive and the CAP. Discussions on its definition took place in 2010. EFNCP submitted a response to the consultation.

EFNCP believes that these terms should be defined in a way which is useful for policy purposes (e.g. makes a distinction between areas providing higher and lower levels of public goods) and there should be clear cross-referencing between them, with confusing differences minimised where possible. We will continue to carry out research, for example in Romania which illustrates the weakness of the current situation and the practical impacts on the ground.

EFNCP believes that the key to a sustainable future for semi-natural farmland is the viability of the systems which use it. Most of our work centres on this issue. However, we also believe that protection has a supporting role to play, since the economic pressure on farmers to intensify is all the greater when their system is profitable.

Research on implementation

In order better to inform our work, we commissioned the Grasslands Trust to carry out research on the implementation of the relevant EU instruments in a range of Member States in 2010. The report by the Grasslands Trust shows that Europe’s semi-natural grasslands are continuing to decline in extent and quality because there is no coherent regulatory and support framework at EU level. Instead there is a plethora of rules and systems that have developed over the past 25 years, with no complementarity between them.

Semi-natural pastures and meadows need a strategic and integrated support framework that works through both Pillars of the CAP. The regulatory structures provided by Cross Compliance, EIA and Renewable Energy Directives and Natura 2000 need to be aligned and integrated.

Following on this work, EFNCP has produced two reports part-funded by SSNC to clarify the issues: the first is an analysis of how the CAP is applied to permanent pastures in 6 countries, the second is a detailed analysis of the key CAP instruments and concrete EFNCP proposals for reform of these instruments to make them better adapted to the needs of semi-natural pastures and the farmers that maintain them. The case-study report was part-funded by the Swedish Rural Network.