Competing for meadows: A case study on tourism and livestock farming in the Spanish Pyrenees

The consequences of tourist growth on extensive livestock farming were studied in a valley in the Spanish Central Pyrenees (Upper Esera), characterised by important growth in tourist activity during the last three decades. The municipalities with the greatest tourist development experienced the biggest drop in livestock farming (abandonment of cultivated land, decrease in livestock population and farms) because of the competition of tourism for labour and fertile land, which are essential to the maintenance of extensive livestock farming. Low use of pasture resources leads to their progressive loss, owing to the advance of plant succession (substitution of pastures by shrubs), decreasing landscape diversity, and increased fire hazard and soil erosion. The authors conclude that the current model of tourist development in the Spanish Pyrenees represents serious problems in terms of sustainable development.