Grasslands of the wooded parkland of the South of Portugal, the 'montado'

A specific type of grazed wooded parkland, named ‘montado’ in Portuguese and ‘dehesa’ in Spanish, attains, in Portugal, over a million hectares according to the 2006 Portuguese Forest Inventory. These are more or less sparsely wooded lands, either of live- or cork-oak (Quercus rotundifolia and Q. suber, respectively) (Photo 20, Plate CS14) where an extensive agricultural system with fallow land was established from the Middle Ages, with the largest historical expression since the 19th century. A fairly dense mono-specific tree-layer of oaks was inherited from a former dense natural forest that was either burnt or cleared, increasing the proportion of clearings typically to more than 40% of the area, among evenspaced trees. Tree species other than live- or cork-oaks were eliminated, as well as the shrub, climber and herb-layers. Successional evolution to a meta-stable zoo-anthropic permanent grassland developing underneath the canopy was carried out with sheep grazing, fitted in a cereal-based long and low soil disturbance rotation system. Even-spaced Quercus trees produced large quantities of acorns, between 400 and 700 (1000) kg/ha-1, that were used in pig fattening. In addition, such parklands were managed to produce forest products such as cork, charcoal (from tree pruning), game and more recently, wildlife and ecosystem services associated with biodiversity, leisure and aesthetics.