Goals

The absence of natural regeneration areas is the main threat to the persistence, and economic and ecological sustainability of the cork oak (Q. suber) and holm oak (Q. rotundifolia) Agroforestry systems (Montados) in south of Portugal.

This threat is consubstantiate by the current management of “Montados” that:

(a) it uses artificial regeneration (by planting), with high costs which are aggravated when young plants fail and;

b) Includes an land use intensification, specifically by intensive grazing with bovine cattle and/or an extensification with absence of forest management and lack of land use alternatives.

This fact is a matter of concern for forest owners/forest managers who urgently need to implement adequate management practices to:

i) to benefit and manage natural regeneration areas that occur spontaneously in their “Montados”;

ii) systematize local conditions favorable to the emergence of natural regeneration areas and replicate them in other potential areas.