Delayed effects of indirect drivers behind changing habitat management in Central Europe

Traditional management practices are essential for maintaining the biodiversity of many semi-natural grassland habitats. Abandonment of these practices is leading to shrub encroachment and a decline in biodiversity in many European regions. For this reason, understanding the social processes behind transforming traditional management practices and the subsequent habitat changes is currently a major focus of ecological research. We aimed to identify ecologically relevant indirect drivers (economic, demographic, institutional, cultural, and technological) impacting Natura 2000 grassland habitats since the mid-twentieth century in two neighbouring Central European post-communist countries, Hungary and Romania.

Ecological memory on 21 semi-natural grassland localities was collected through 60 oral history interviews from knowledgeable locals. The studied localities were covered by semi-natural grasslands listed in the Habitats Directive, Annex I: 1.) Semi-natural dry grasslands (6210); 2.) Alluvial meadows of river valleys (6440); and 3.) Pannonic salt steppes and salt marshes (1530*). We asked about three time periods (before: 1950-1961, during: 1962-1989, and after socialist collective farming: 1990-2007).

We identified 211 mentions of indirect drivers and categorised them into five main indirect driver categories. Economic drivers were the most often mentioned indirect driver categories for alluvial and saline habitats. Demographic drivers, such as ageing, labour shortage, and rural-urban migration, were highly intertwined and most pronounced for dry semi-natural grasslands. We found that the impacts of ecologically relevant social processes beginning in the 1960s-1970s became visible only decades later, reflected by delayed changes in grassland management and vegetation (e.g. shrub encroachment, spread of weeds and invasive species). Migration to cities was amplified by changing lifestyles and values, leading to a decrease in the village labour force and a consequent ageing of inhabitants, ultimately resulting in a major decline in livestock numbers and in traditional management practices. We argue that the decline of grassland management in the 1990s and 2000s was driven by long-term social processes that began in the 1960s.

We argue, that appropriate subsidy schemes and governance models are essential to support surviving traditional farming practices, integrate biodiversity conservation with cultural heritage, and sustain innovative rural communities transitioning within Europe's marginalised agricultural landscapes.