Session

The study analyses the conservation status of hay meadows in Trentino, a mountain region in the south-east of the Alps. Here, the valley floor have long been confronted with increasing infrastructural development and pervasive cultivation, especially orchards, which reduce the extensive meadows to rarities. Mountain grasslands, on the other hand, are undergoing a period of strong change. This is partly due to the economic-social pressure towards greater profitability combined with the persistence of traditional practices. Hay meadows of the subalpine horizon are somewhat less undermined, although a component of abandonment and conversion to pasture is known. The altitudinal distribution of pressures presented above, leads to the fact that immediate change is concentrated in mountain areas, where grasslands are still widespread and closely linked to livestock management. Given the uncertain status of open areas conservation, their well-known biological richness and their essential structural function both ecol