UNHIDE Agroforestry - A Knowledge Exchange Latvia- Sweden 2023-25 - Report - Page 36
Bekas Family/Nature Demonstration Farm: Silvopasture, Latvia
“NATURAL GRASSLANDS
ARE THE MOST
ENDANGERED HABITAT
IN OUR COUNTRY”
led to agricultural land and pastures of lower
economic value becoming overgrown with trees;
this process also characterizes the contemporary
Latvian landscape.
- Viesturs Lārmanis
BEKAS is a family farm, demonstration site, and
learning centre for grassland restoration in northern Latvia. The farm is partly located within the
Ziemeļgauja nature reserve, one of the country’s
most species-rich Natura 2000 areas. The landscape is shaped by the Gauja River, which floods
annually and erodes the sandbanks as it meanders
through grasslands and pine forests.
In Latvia, as elsewhere, intensive agriculture has
transformed natural meadows and grasslands—including pastures with low-intensity grazing—into
drained arable land under monoculture agriculture, resulting in habitat loss and species extinction.
In parallel, the absence of grazing, together with
rural depopulation and land abandonment, has
Melempyrum pratense.
Sid 7-8
On the farm’s 120 hectares, there are 11 types of
Filipendula ulmaria.
