Assessment Report for the Interconnections of Land Use Practices and Land Abandonment with Biodiversity and Soil Characteristics

The Terra Lemnia project attempts to support the biodiversity-friendly agro-pastoral practices developed around the original mandra systems and re-establish the broken links between arable farming and stockbreeding in Lemnos Island. The main baseline data needed for all the activities of the Terra Lemnia project have been derived by a combination of desk and field work, using several sources:

• the documentation of the territorial expression of this mixed agro-pastoral system and the assessment of its diachronic evolution in the past decades, has been performed using land cover maps, aerial photography and field survey;
• recording of important farming practices related to the mandra system, such as crop rotation, fallow land practice, preservation of semi-natural habitats etc., has been conducted by means of field surveying and questionnaires / interviews;
• recording of current livestock breeding and grazing conditions has been carried out by means of field surveying and questionnaires / interviews;
• recording of important species of biodiversity and soil characteristics in selected areas of the island has been based on field surveying; and
• assessment of interconnections between biodiversity species and soil characteristics with several agro-pastoral practices, and with land abandonment, has been based on secondary analysis of all the data collected by the above sources.