Drivers for Fostering Agroforestry Systems in Temperate and Mediterranean Climates: Past, Present, and Future

Traditional multifunctional agroforestry landscapes provide not only food but also support biodiversity and provide a multitude of ecosystem services. However, such landscapes have been frequently lost in the last decades. Given the multiple global challenges that have emerged from an industrial model of agriculture, agroforestry as a concept based on multifunctionality is increasingly regarded as key for sustainable food production systems of the future. To guide future land management and policies, past land-use change histories as well as the motivations and challenges of current land managers have to be understood and considered. Three articles covering different spatial and temporal scales are the basis of this thesis. In the first article, I conducted a literature review and compiled landscape histories over 200 years of nine tree crop landscapes in eight different countries of the Mediterranean Basin. I found an accelerating change of landscape processes mostly steered towards abandonment or intensification by different interrelated driving forces, including socio-cultural, economic, political, technical, and natural drivers. Recently, a process that I called renaissance occurred in two landscapes and raises hope for a new appreciation of such multifunctional landscapes. In the second and third articles, I studied the present challenges and motivations of land-managers by conducting social surveys. I asked them about their perceptions of social-ecological outcomes of agroforestry land management systems and about successful measures for fostering agroforestry. In article II, I chose the adjacent counties Sierra de Gata and Las Hurdes in Spain as case study sites to interview members of an Integrated Landscape Initiative called Mosaico. These farmers collaborate in managing agroforestry systems for mitigating wildfires. Article III covered chestnut fruit cultivation in Germany as a case study of adopting a new potentially profitable crop to agroforestry systems. Here, I wanted to assess the motivations and challenges of the people that already cultivate that tree crop. In my second and third articles, I found that both farmers from the Integrated Landscape Initiative and the chestnut growers were highly motivated. Chestnut growers, especially junior growers, showed the highest motivation regarding sustainable land management. Combatting depopulation was the highest motivation for farmers of the landscape initiative. Generally, I found the neo-rural playing an underestimated and important role in the initiative, as they were especially motivated by practices increasing biodiversity and enhancing well-being. Barriers were in both cases unsuitable legislation regarding perennial crops and agroforestry as well as low funding opportunities for multifunctional systems. Besides the perceived effectiveness of wildfire mitigation in Spain, I found diverse further positive personal and regional outcomes due to collaborative agroforestry. Similarly, chestnut growers perceived tree crops as providing multiple positive ecosystem services. The barriers that the farmers face and the motivations and success factors they highlighted could help guiding land management decisions. The results of all three articles are discussed and synthesized in a compiled story, covering the past, and present, and future, including perspectives land management and its policies in the field of agroforestry. This thesis covers case studies in temperate and Mediterranean climates. The insights have to be adapted to local contexts and thus, can be transferred to other climates with similar land change patterns.