Landscape Development, Biodiversity and Co-operative Livestock System (LACOPE)

Photo: U. Wasem (WSL)

Large-scale grazing systems formed once a significant part of the European landscape. Due to intensification of agriculture, continuous landscapes and habitats formed by extensive grazing diminished and biodiversity declined. It is hypothesized that Co-operative Livestock Systems (CLS) are appropriate to manage large, continuous landscapes and to reconcile biodiversity conservation and land management for economic gain. CLS are assumed to provide a useful structure to apply EU-subsidies effectively, and to improve non-monetary effects of extensive land management.

The main objectives of LACOPE are:

• development of ecological and economical indicators to describe large-scale grazing systems
  
• evaluation of the contribution of CLS for biodiversity conservation and the sustainability of present CLS status
  
• development of a typology of European CLS
  
• derivation of goal-oriented measures to handel conflicts between biodiversity conservation and CLS
  
• modelling different measures to optimise biodiversity conservation and economic gain in CLS
  
• identification of potential target areas for CLS in Europe
  
• recommendations for a goal-oriented policy design of CLS

WSL is a partner in the LACOPE project which is co-funded by the EU.

Contact

• Christoph Scheidegger
  

• Silvia Stofer