In brief

PASTORALP is a Life funded project coordinated by University of Florence and involving other Italian and French partners coming from research, institutional and management areas. The project started on October, the 1st 2017 and it will end on March, the 30th 2022.

As one of the most sensitive ecosystems to climate change and human disturbances, Alpine permanent grasslands have been identified as hotspots of climate and land-use changes. The LIFE project PASTORALP combines biophysical and socio-economic approaches to address the vulnerability of Alpine pastures and provides a better capacity to reduce them. The project relies on a solid science-based knowledge of baseline conditions of Alpine pastoral communities and projected impacts of future climate changes on these communities, with focus on two national parks representative of West’s Alpine environments: Parc National Des Ecrins (France) and Parco Nazionale del Gran Paradiso (Italy). Stakeholder consultation and engagement will be a core element of the project work plan.

The final output will be the deployment of platform tools facilitating the adoption of adaptation strategies in the two parks, aligned with the objectives of the ‘Climate change adaptation priority area’ of the EU. The strategies and tools developed in this work could be easily exploited in other pastoral areas across Western Alps.