The dehesa-montado, which covers 30% of the surface area of Extremadura and Alentejo, is a crucial habitat and production system. This environment not only generates employment in rural areas and contributes to population stability, but also provides various ecosystem services and is home to a rich biodiversity. Given its vast extent and intrinsic characteristics, it has considerable potential for preventing risks that increasingly affect the cross-border territory, such as fires, floods, and desertification. It also plays a significant role in mitigating these risks thanks to its capacity to capture carbon. 

However, climate change poses a serious threat to the survival of this system. It aggravates the lack of regeneration, increase the disease in the trees and the animals, and observed a progressive degradation of the soils and pastures. These challenges, in turn, contribute to a crisis on the productive activities and in the social fabric that underpin this unique ecosystem.

Main objective: 

The main objective of the project is: 

– Implement and disseminate actions that contribute to the restoration, climate change adaptation and value of the dehesa-montado, as a way of their preservation and their economic and environmental resilience, and for the creation of resilience planning. 

SOS PRODEHESA-MONTADO proposes solutions to key factors for the resilience of the system: 

• The low success rate of the regeneration of the trees and their diseases, 
• The degradation of soils and pastures, 
• The difficulties of the regulations that block its adaptation, 
• The low recognition and compensation for the environmental benefits provided, 
• The difficulties of an adaptive management for property-related issues, 
• The lack of generational renewal, low levels of training, 
• The lack of communication between key actors.