Horse Meat Production in Northern Spain: Ecosystem Services and Sustainability in High Nature Value Farmland

Abstract

The natural environment provides many benefits to humans, which are assessed in terms of ecosystem services. In most mountain regions of Europe, the rural exodus and the abandonment of the traditional practices have led to deep changes in the landscape, decreasing the characteristic mosaicism and the diversity of inherited ecosystems (Martínez-Fernández et al., 2015; Múñoz-Ulecia et al., 2021). As a consequence, many ecosystem services are being affected, such as the biodiversity, the carbon sequestration, and the provisioning value of food for herbivores, among others (Durán et al., 2020; Oggioni et al., 2020). In addition, the current situation of climate change seriously aggravates the problem of land abandonment, especially in areas of high plant productivity. Forest expansion and shrub encroachment are leading to a loss of open spaces, a homogenization of the landscape and an accumulation of fuels that, in a situation of high temperatures and drought, entail high environmental risks.