LAND-USE CHANGES IN THE SPANISH PYRENEES

This paper discusses the evolution of land use in the Spanish Pyrenees and the environmental and demographic factors that led to change. The traditional system depended upon a complex social organization and abundant cheap labor; there was extensive summer grazing for sheep which in winter moved to the Ebro Basin; and, despite the unfavorable environment, the cultivation of cereals was important. In the second half of the twentieth century, outmigration led to a disruption of the management systems: transhumance disappeared and cattle replaced sheep; cultivated slopes have been abandoned while in the valley bottoms agriculture has been intensified; meadows have been converted to cereal production to ensure the supply of winter feed to livestock. -Authors