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Geografia d'Europa: textos de suport |
Openfields
The extremely open landscape of wide undulating plains with regular plots of arable land, extending from France to Germany, is called 'openfield'. Several subtypes of openfield are recognised: Atlantic, continental, Aquitaine, former and collective openfields. The complex and often pendulum-like changes which have led to the formation of landscapes found in Europe today, particularly the tension between open and enclosed forms, are well illustrated by the example of the former openfields in Denmark.
In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries the original forests of central
Jutland (Denmark) were overutilised. Continuous felling, slash-and-burn
agriculture, and overgrazing gradually turned the mixed oak woodland into
an open landscape with local arable openfields, enclosed pastures, some
left-over wooded land, heaths, bogs and fens. In the eighteenth and nineteenth
centuries, heaths were ploughed up to feed the growing population, bogs
and fens were drained, and roads and farmyards were built in uneven and
scattered patterns. Since the land was suitable both for cattle breeding
and for arable crops, the landscape was sometimes dominated by meadows
and sometimes by cropland. After 1945, central Jutland began losing a large
number of hedges; farms grew in size, plots extended, wet grasslands were
drained. As a direct result, the landscape came to be characterised by
greater uniformity over larger areas. Large numbers of pigs are now reared,
making it necessary, for example, to grow more barley. To enable this,
permanent grasslands have been ploughed up, while arable land on poor soils
is abandoned, reforested or becoming covered in weed (Bernes, 1993). This
has resulted in a 'hybrid', semi-open landscape, termed 'former openfields'.
Nowadays, wind and water erosion threatens the soil and landscape. To prevent
this erosion, each year many kilometres of new hedges are planted and thousands
of hectares of evergreen crops are sown. These new hedges and crops are
unlikely to restore the former rich wildlife but may enhance the sustainability
of the landscape.
Enclosed landscapes with hedges/bocage
Human influence controls the degree of enclosure or openness of the landscape. The landscapes in Europe vary from enclosed (bocages or hedges) to open landscapes (openfields). In the western parts of Europe, Atlantic and continental climatic influences, a high population density and a dispersed settlement pattern render the almost entirely human-made landscapes subject to swift changes in time and space.
In the French language the word 'bocage' refers both to the hedge itself
and to a landscape consisting of hedges. The 'bocage' landscape of Brittany,
central England and Ireland, with some 'offshoots' in Scandinavia, is the
classic example of an enclosed agricultural landscape with a long history.
Mixed cultivation has been pursued for many generations, with both agriculture
and cattle farming side by side. Bocage landscapes usually have a slightly
rolling landform, and are found mainly in maritime climates. Soil texture
is usually sandy, loamy to clayey. Being a small-scale, enclosed landscape,
the bocage offers much variation in biotopes, with habitats for birds,
small mammals, amphibians, reptiles and butterflies. There is a close infrastructure
network, and small plots, with some farmhouses surrounded by hedges or
low walls. Plot fragmentation makes the majority of bocage landscapes increasingly
less suitable for arable farming, contributing to the rise in popularity
of cattle farming in these areas. In Ireland, for example, the bocage landscape
with its patterns of hedges suits to the intensification of cattle farming.
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