Groups of stakeholders in each of the six study sites attended workshops to discuss

1. whether they have noticed changes in environmental conditions and/or regime changes, and how they adapted to those changes, over and up to a period of 20 years from the present, and
2. what kind of changes they expect to witness in the future (up to 20 years from the present) as well as what future changes, strategies and adaptation measures they perceive they might make to their land use and management, in order to adapt to those possible future changes.

Who were the stakeholders?

Stakeholders included:

1. land users (farmers, shepherds, transient and sedentary land users, managers and hunters);
2. landscape users (naturalists, photographers, tourist guides);
3. government stakeholders from environment departments, local councils and forestry departments;
4. stakeholders from environmental NGOs;
5. the private sector;
6. researchers.

(NB: Not all sites had the same groups of stakeholders.)

Perceptions of changes in environmental conditions and/or regime shifts

The stakeholders identified a range of different types of regime changes including land use changes, environmental and ecological changes, and climatic events that have taken place in the past.

However, they tended not to clearly differentiate between regime changes and the drivers of those changes. For example, erosion could be seen as both a regime change driven by changes in land use practices, and as a driver of vegetation loss. The fuzziness between changes/drivers was particularly apparent in relation to climate change events, which stakeholders quoted both as a change in themselves, and as a driver of change. As most stakeholders had this ambiguous view across the study sites, and it was clear that they saw drivers and effects/consequences as part of a vicious cycle of use-damage-more intensive uses-more damage.

Another challenge with the data received is that when describing the changes in regime, most stakeholders referred to a period of more than 20 years ago, despite being asked only about the last 20 years. As such, they described the changes in the time frame that they had observed within their memorable lifetime, instead of referring to the time frame that was asked of them. This made it difficult to establish a reference/baseline period, which was deemed necessary to permit comparisons to be made and establish whether stakeholders were talking about the same change(s) as one another, or not. Finally, while stakeholders mentioned the changes taking place and the adaptations undertaken, specific changes were not always linked to specific adaptations. This further complicated the analysis.

Stakeholder adaptations to change

Although there was some overlap between them, four areas into which stakeholders are currently channeling their adaptation efforts were identified.

1. Environmental management adaptations, the main activities that stakeholders undertook in response to regime changes across all study sites (67% of measures across sites). These referred mostly to prevention and management of deleterious environmental changes, and to the recovery of nature and rural practices.
2. Socio-political adaptations, (15%) and consisted of improving land use and environmental management through cross-sector organization, advancing or creating policies for land use and land users, and patrolling to prevent illegal practices.
3. Socio-economic adaptations, stakeholders mentioned economic support, subsidies, and migration.
4. Cultural adaptations.

Environmental management adaptation measures were the main activities that stakeholders undertook in response to regime changes across all study sites. These referred mostly to prevention and management of deleterious environmental changes, and to the recovery of nature and rural practices. (Rural practices are an example of an adaptation that may also be considered in the cultural adaptation category. Given the links to land management, we classified rural practices under environmental management adaptations). Socio-political measures consisted of improving land use and environmental management through cross-sector organization, advancing or creating policies for land use and land users, and patrolling to prevent illegal practices. Under socio-economic measures, stakeholders mentioned economic support, subsidies, and migration.

Future adaptation to change

When answering about the policy/economic support required to facilitate adaptation, stakeholders differed in their needs and visions for future efforts. Responses of wanting/desiring/ needing differed from the measures they are already carrying out, in which they stated what was lacking, or identified better ways of implementing current efforts.

Most areas of support required were directed towards environmental management (30%) and socio-political and cultural measures (22% each).

There were also suggestions for new approaches including a) engagement in new activities/or new practices such as aiming for product certifications, engagement in or promotion of rural tourism, organising cooperatives, and the use of alternative energy sources; and b) other changes, in which there are efforts towards education, engagement of new generations in rural activities, revaluation of rural stakeholders and traditional practices, which, with the exception of two stakeholders (from Italy and Albatera, Spain) who stated that they were devoting efforts to education, was not currently being practised.

The combination of exploitation of the land, together with climate variability that has occurred in the Mediterranean, has resulted in the need for stakeholders to adapt as ecological thresholds are reached. Such changes are aggravated by the shortage of water resources and the unpredictability and uncertainty associated with weather and climate forecasts.

The intrinsic differences between bio-physical and climatic conditions across the study sites, plus the diversity in the socio-economic settings, make it highly challenging to compare the results and identify patterns in the changes and responses to change. While major land abandonment has occurred in Spain (Albatera), Italy and Portugal, an increase in grazing and croplands has also been reported. In contrast, study sites in Cyprus and Greece are still being used somewhat intensively. In Cyprus, pressure from tourism expansion has meant that there has been an increase in urbanisation and population , that has not been beneficial for the agricultural sector.

Regime changes

Stakeholders’ perceptions of changes, their responses to changes, and their forecasts and proposals for changes vary across all six study sites. In Italy and Greece, stakeholders reported that intergenerational transfer of knowledge and land based skills are diminishing. Further changes in rural practices (i.e. buying seeds instead of keeping seeds) and the shift to cultivation of crops (e.g. olive tree cultivation) that also allow a second job, may also interrupt intergenerational knowledge transfer, as it may alienate users from their land, so the next generation would not have a way of learning the necessary practical agricultural trades/skills.

Land abandonment has had deleterious effects in every study site, for example, through the increase of fires and the risk of this occurring in Cyprus, Portugal, Italy and Ayora; through grassland degradation in Italy; and increases in pests and alien species in Italy and Cyprus. In places where intergenerational replacement was low, stakeholders were more concerned about the environment and sustained more negative forecasts about the future of rural areas. These concerns are not specific to the Mediterranean. Land abandonment is increasing worldwide.

Intergenerational transfer and family succession in farms has been reported to have been reduced due to migration to urban areas. This trend has been noted specifically in rural Europe and the Mediterranean, suggesting that stakeholder concerns are empirically grounded. Such changes and trends have further implications for loss of local knowledge on the use of natural resources and on environmental management practices, as transfer of local knowledge has been highlighted in the literature as an important adaptation tool. CASCADE researchers have noticed that land use is very resilient to environmental degradation within a generation, but can change abruptly between generations (i.e. farmers will stay farmers despite the degradation, but their children will probably not continue to use the land). Such changes have already occurred in Italy. However, the traditional system of splitting farm to children still holds strong in Crete, and land redistribution is a big step towards efficiency, yielding beneficial outcomes in several areas in Crete.

Drivers of change

Stakeholders in Ayora and Italy were inclined to explore alternative energy, however, it is noticeable that in some parts of Greece there are efforts to control wind power expansion. In Ayora, windmills were signalled by stakeholders as drivers of change. Windmills were installed by a large energy company.  This suggests that private sector involvement in rural areas is growing in importance in driving change.

Qualitative research has shown that there is often a tension between management institutions and other stakeholders, regarding the environmental resources that institutions are managing. In 2 of the study sites, stakeholders mentioned policies and institutions as one of the drivers of change; in Italy policy incentives to cut vineyards and the ensuing change of crops were deleterious to the environment, while in Greece, subsidies for animal production caused an increase in grazing intensity. Furthermore, policies that avoid improvement of practices such as “goat removal” were also impeding the flexibility of stakeholders’ responses. Removing goats can improve conditions in cases of overgrazing, whereas in undergrazed areas a combination of livestock is more efficient as their foraging needs are complementary.

Adaptations to change

All management practices were considered as adaptations in these workshops. However, it is important to note that there may be activities and measures that were not reported at the time, as stakeholders may not have perceived them as adaptation practices. Further practices currently been carried out by stakeholders to counteract or reverse biophysical changes have been gathered by CASCADE researchers using the WOCAT methodology.

Adaptation efforts in some study sites were perceived to be the responsibility of land users. In Greece and Cyprus, stakeholders that were not in the ‘land user’ category answered that they did not need to adapt as they did not have any land or the land was private property, therefore they were unable to carry out any activity to prevent or manage detrimental changes.  In the same line, civil servants’ answers to adaptation efforts focused on promoting or providing support to land users to carry out environmental management activities.

In some countries, the same actions or adaptations were seen as either good or bad. In Italy, tourism was viewed as a positive alternative adaptation activity, while in Cyprus, stakeholders stated that it should be controlled as it threatens environmental resources.  The same discrepancy has been noted for wind turbines and water usage. This suggests that the types of strategies and adaptations proposed may need careful evaluation, taking into account both their costs and their benefits for the environment and society, looking particularly at which parts of society “win” and which “lose”.

Water usage perceptions and statements can be a subject of debate and discussion. In Albatera an increase in irrigation was mentioned as an adaptation response to regime changes. However, it is important to note that use of irrigation is also the result of having easy access to water, which in turn has caused further degradation of the land. In Greece, sedentary and transient land users have different access to water. It was reported by the CASCADE researchers, that only sedentary land users can take advantage of the dam, while transient land users feel that they were judged poorly by the authorities as they exploited spring water at higher ground. As a result of mainly agricultural consumption, spring and surface water has decreased, which is causing stress to transient users.

Expected changes

The expected regime changes, and how positive or negative people’s perceptions are, can influence how actively stakeholders respond, and how willing and hopeful they are to embrace change and the future results of change. This is observed in the literature too, where it is noted that social and environmental characteristics affect the resilience of a place, and how society will cope or adapt to climatic events.

In Italy there was a lack of consensus regarding the future changes that are expected. While some stakeholders predicted that farming and grazing will eventually stop due to the lack of a younger generation to take over, others expected a reactivation and revitalisation of rural activities, mainly through the improvement and modernisation of practices, such as mechanisation of farming, and the provision of training and incentives to younger generations, as well as a reduction in bureaucracy and greater engagement in exports.

In Cyprus every stakeholder expected that an increase in erosion and detrimental changes in vegetation and wildlife will occur. At the same time, land users stated measures required for adaptation circumscribed to policy enforcement and governmental support in the form of subsidies, rat baits and trees. These responses indicate a lack of self-empowerment, with stakeholders being dependent on external support. Stakeholders in Albatera showed a similar trend in their requirements for future measures. In contrast, stakeholders in Greece and Italy mentioned education, strategic organisation and better water management as future strategies for adaptation.  Research on how to implement these types of efforts needs to be backed up with qualitative information. Farmers’ responses to policy and environmental changes can be related to how they are presented to them. As every adaptation measure is mediated by culture, culturally informed approaches are needed to set up new measures. Cultural enquiry, for example through ethnographic research, can document knowledge, responses in behavior and practices.

Required policy and support

Stakeholders with environmental awareness, such as local naturalists, expressed that environmental education and consideration of long term impacts were a necessary step to reach more successful environmental management and adaptation goals. This point can be validated by the low number of stakeholders who mentioned the importance of the conservation of the natural landscape, although most manifested concern for the loss of resilience of the environment, and noted erosion and other consequences for anthropogenic land uses.

In Portugal, Italy and Spain, stakeholders stated that dissemination of information and knowledge about incentives and subsidies was required in order to improve accessibility so that local land users could make full use of such initiatives. More attention to how stakeholders engage with adaptation initiatives is crucial. As they are the first receivers of policies for adaptation, investing in dissemination and information is vital for the success of any initiative. Furthermore, stakeholders can perceive changes to create different degrees of risk. Regardless of how damaging invasive vegetation can be, wider research involving stakeholders in Spain found that it is only perceived as moderately problematic, which has, in turn, resulted in limited management efforts.

Different stakeholders typically have different suggestions and hold different priorities, therefore decision making and the prioritization of measures will require stakeholder engagement at every stage of the process. Further research will be important to gather information from female stakeholders, as this can increase our understanding of the relationship between land and livelihoods. A more gendered approach requires a methodology to be designed that captures differences between males and females. Where possible this will be considered in future CASCADE stakeholder sampling.

The relation between different governance levels working on adaptation is often overlooked. Cross-sector organisations will need to be appropriately designed and tailored to the ethos of both stakeholders and institutions. Different stakeholders mentioned diverse levels of autonomy and state intervention as being desirable. While in Spain stakeholders demanded strong decision making, in Italy it was proposed that adaptation action should be organised through land user cooperatives that may require different levels of autonomy. Such stakeholder organisation needs to be dynamic, with institutions able to recognise how individuals and the community work and to acknowledge their efforts and empower them by facilitating participation in community efforts towards environmental management.

Although participation is required, the benefits of strong law enforcement and decision making were also recognized. Stakeholders in Albatera, Spain mentioned the need for strong and informed decision makers, able to take appropriate decisions despite the unconformity of some sectors.

Current conflicts between farmers and shepherds in several of the study sites due to overgrazing indicate that strong communication and organizational efforts are vital, not only for environmental management, but to prevent further conflicts within the community. The offer of alternative livelihoods for shepherds as well as options for less extensive grazing, and site-specific policies for grazing are needed. It was noticed by CASCADE researchers that educated farmers in Greece seem to support intensive grazing.

Promoting stakeholders’ visions of long-term environmental management which consider the reconciliation of environmental management with rural traditions, may facilitate stakeholder engagement in new proposals and management schemes to help avoid regime changes or reduce their negative impacts. However, economic aspects must not be overlooked. While technological alternatives can help to decrease land degradation, policy incentives to boost the viability of these measures need to be in place. Finally, adaptation strategies can sometimes increase problems or create new ones. Efforts towards adaptation and environmental management therefore need to be monitored in order to assess which strategies are successful and helping to build adaptive capacity and which are leading to further problems. An indicator system or other type of standardised assessment could help to monitor the success of the measures, and inform the decision making of future steps.

Measures for fire prevention efforts and environmental conservation need to consider short term and long term consequences for land users, to avoid disengagement and land abandonment. Incentives and strategies to prevent land abandonment need to be in place, with efforts approached from different angles, in order to develop a comprehensive strategy that includes social, cultural and economic considerations. Particular factors that need to be considered include the revalorisation of rural practices, incentives and support to new generations in the form of education and financing, and the formation of cooperatives and other communal efforts. Communication between stakeholders should be improved in order to maximise efficiency and knowledge transfer. A simple example of this is that land users should notify the fire service when they decide to clear land or burn cuttings.

Stakeholders are complementing their subsistence products with imports, which has food security implications that need to be considered in future management and adaptation programmes. New techniques, alternative activities such as ecotourism, promoting local culture, integrating IT technology into farming practices and the development of product certification were some of the adaptation measures that stakeholders mentioned. These indicated that along with subsidies, programmes and workshops are necessary (for building adaptive capacity through training) to support the development of such measures. In Italy and Greece, programmes aiming to engage younger generations are vital, due to migration and the abandonment of rural practices. Such training should include the adoption of new technologies as well as the dissemination of local knowledge. However, stakeholders also mentioned the need for more informed and specialized decision makers and technicians, suggesting that training needs to be provided for every sector of the community and also for a range of different stakeholders.

Supporting small scale farmers to comply with bureaucracy and legislation or a flexible administration is vital. Most farmers have serious problem accessing markets because they cannot afford to produce according to the necessary EU standards. This is a major hindering factor for land management as land users are forced to remain small-scale and do not have funds to improve management and/or to adapt. National/EU subsidies have further caused major land abandonment in Italy and Cyprus.