TRADITIONAL AGROFORESTRY SYSTEMS IN GREECE

Τraditional agroforestry systems (TAFs) are important landmarks of rural areas, of extremely significant cultural and scientific value. According to Papanastasis (2015), these systems „reflect the ways in which humans of the past treated and utilized available natural resources, interacted with their environment, incorporated natural elements -especially trees- into their lives and were close to nature“. In addition, they have significant scientific value due to the possibilities they provide to modern humans for establishing alternative techniques of management, use and modification of the rural landscape. By retaining these two qualities, TAFs further contribute to enhancing the ecosystem services offered by typical agroforestry systems (Castle et al. 2022).

What do the modeling tools tell us about the prospects of traditional agroforestry systems in the current socio-economic environment and in the medium term?

Greece holds a prominent place in Europe in terms of the presence of TAFs. It is estimated that they occupy an area of about 3 million Ha or 23% of the country’s territory (Papanastasis et al. 2009). Agroforestry is present in all types of its possible systems (silvoarable, silvopastoral, agrosilvopastoral). Typical density varies from 10 - 100 trees/Ha (as in Italy), compared to Spain and Portugal where the density is 10 - 40 trees/Ha (Eichhorn et al. 2006). The existing systems are considered degraded and largely abandoned, bearing the negative consequences of the abandonment of agricultural, pastoral and forestry activities in Greece’s rural areas (Papanastasis 2004).

TAFs can be found all over the country, however they occur more often in Northern (Macedonia, Thrace) and Central (Thessaly, Sterea Ellada) Greece, Crete and the Aegean islands. In the region of Thessaly, which is environmentally strained due to intensive and one-dimensional agriculture, TAFs are located mainly in semi- mountainous areas, near rural settlements. The TAFs of semi-mountainous Thessaly were the object of the AGROTHES research project «Prospects of agroforestry in the Thessaly Region: A research study with a social, environmental and economic dimension aiming to strengthen the participation of farmers» (2018-2022) (General Secretariat for Research and Innovation, Hellenic Research and Innovation Foundation, University of Thessaly). The project investigated the prospects for the implementation of agroforestry in Thessaly in order to strengthen farmers’ participation. A special environmental research methodology was developed in the context of the project, which included the mapping and modeling of land uses to predict future developments based on socio-economic scenarios under the CLUE-S spatiotemporal model (Mamanis et al. 2021, Nasiakou et al. 2022). The Municipality of Mouzaki, in Western Thessaly, was chosen as the research area.