Agricultural and pastoral abandonment and vegetal recolonization: the role of the woody species as indicators of the vegetal regeneration stage and the abandonment age

Abstract

An agricultura! and pastoral abandonment has become general in many mountaineous areas, as a consequence of the depopulation of the countryside. This abandonment has unchained processes ofvegetable recolonization that has caused the disabling of traditionally pastured areas and the transformation of rural landscape. This vegetable recolonization presents diverse varieties and «speeds». The author comes to an approximation to the chronology of country abandonment, by the analysis of the progression woody plants in three suntrap (Bethmale, Faup y Aulus) in Haut Couserans (Central Pyrenees, France). The results show how the evolution of processes of vegetal recolonization is subject to «inversions», «blockades» and «accelerations», related to the environmental characteristics and the plots history.