Biodiversity Foundation PREPAST Project: Ecopastoral assessment of extensive livestock farming in the Montsec and Boumort mountain ranges, the Lleida Pre-Pyrenees, and the rest of the Spanish Pre-Pyrenees. Management to improve associated ecosystem services.

The rural exodus and abandonment of extensive livestock farming produce more homogeneous, less diverse, and less resilient landscapes to the effects of climate change, such as wildfires. Depopulation in rural Spain primarily affected small municipalities, often poorly connected and with few job opportunities. All of this has led to the disappearance of herds and shepherds in many areas, which in the long run leads to ecological problems (landscape homogenization, risk of wildfires, loss of biodiversity) and economic problems (loss of a sustainable resource).

To boost the bioeconomy, the ecological transition, adaptation to climate change, and the fight against rural depopulation, extensive livestock farming and its potential as green infrastructure are being promoted in protected areas of the Pre-Pyrenees, one of the most sparsely populated areas of the northeastern Iberian Peninsula. Special attention is paid to the ecosystem services of pastoralism and the social appreciation of the shepherd's profession.