Cattle population required for favorable conservation status of management-dependent semi-natural grasslands and forests, and associated increase in enteric methane emissions

Summary

The state of biodiversity in the world is critical where natural grassland is one of the habitat types showing the strongest deteriorating trend of biodiversity loss. At European Union level, 75% of all grassland habitats have poor or bad status, with cessation of farming and subsequent overgrowth posing the greatest threat. To achieve favorable conservation status of natural grasslands, the area given over to grazing livestock or hay mowing needs to increase in many regions. The aim of this study was to calculate the number of cattle required to manage various types of unfertilized grazing land, and associated enteric methane emissions from these cattle, using Sweden as the study area. Four different scenarios with various categories of grazing cattle were evaluated: beef suckler cows and