Rediscovery of traditional grazing landscapes after rural abandonment and recent land use and land cover change dynamics: Camero Nuevo, La Rioja

Abstract

This study is conceived as an analytical prospection on Cameros, La Rioja; a representative example of rural landscapes in the northern Iberian Peninsula linked from the medieval period to the economic system of transhumance. We analyze some data (specifically on the Camero Nuevo district) that reveal changes in the units of use and vegetation cover registered since 1956, and assess its territorial importance. With a view to the future we propose, as possible lines of action, the re-evaluation of ecological and cultural signs in the natural landscapes, the use of forest management as a guarantee of sustainability and of the evolutionary dynamics of the landscape–to avoid the risk of simplifying views. As regards the increase in urban-based ecotourism, we underscore the need to understand the different structures of the natural environment (trees, brush, pastures) as part of an inseparable, multiple and integral ecological fabric at different scales and levels from the perspective of human action.