Grasslands are vital arenas for social-ecological sustainability because their significant coverage and potential to integrate food production with biodiversity conservation. Romania's grasslands have a substantial coverage of native vegetation with high diversity of structural elements, protected species and functional groups, and are an important source of resilience for the farming landscapes. However, the European Union Common Agricultural Policies (CAP) measures contradict the objective of halting the loss of grasslands, by making agricultural intensification or afforestation an attractive option for farmers. This situation can be interpreted as a case of rigidity trap, where the landowners recognize the unsuitability of CAP measures but are encouraged to continue by EU subsidies. Such threats simplify the management of grasslands, change traditional connections and disrupt traditional land use. To understand the disruption of grassland local governance by CAP measure, our analysis focuses on a comparative network analysis of grassland governance of three Romanian regions (Iron Gates Natural Park - SW of Romania, Sighisoara - Tarnava Mare – center, and Dobrogea - SE). In Sighisoara grasslands management has been centralized but biodiversity friendly, while in Iron Gates Natural Park grasslands were traditionally managed through a decentralized, community-level system. In Dobrogea, grasslands were managed in an intensive, centralized state-run regime during the communist time, and by large landowners after transition period ended.
Results/Conclusions
Our findings illustrate the structure of the three governance networks indicating distinct particularities to be considered when exploring barriers to, and options for successful governance in traditionally managed grasslands in the context of CAP measures-driven management. The governance system from Sighisoara promoted a biodiversity friendly management, with a large number of actors involved and association of local stakeholders as network leaders. The governance systems from Iron Gates included few active local stakeholders, the governance network being dominated by public agencies. The lack of involvement of local stakeholders, induced a lower CAP funds absorption rate and thus, abandonment and afforestation of grasslands. The worst governance setting is in Dobrogea, where the land is owned by few large landowners, which use CAP funds for agricultural intensification. The landowners have connection only with state agencies, the traditional land-use being completely disrupted. This suggests that EU Common Agricultural Policies must be changed in order to compensate agricultural intensification or afforestation of High Nature Value Grasslands by significantly increasing the subsidies for traditional management and the financial support for small farms.