Grassland conservation across European landscapes protecting biodiversity and ecosystem services with ecological networks

They are valued for their biodiversity and ecosystem services (ES) and have often been formed by traditional agricultural land-use. They are increasingly challenged by changes in farm management and land-use through both intensification and abandonment. Aligning biodiversity and ES conservation agendas with sustainable agricultural land-use is an important societal priority. Integrating social-ecological knowledge on grassland use in protected areas provides an important basis for developing and maintaining protected landscapes and for optimizing the use of scarce public resources.