Our website’s first photograph provides clues – see Points of Interest – about why a hidden and little-known watershed in southwest Portugal is special. Although its gentle landscape has been populated and subjected to hunting and agriculture for thousands of years, it still preserves traces of what became, at the end of the last ice age, a vital haven for biodiversity. It was in this era that plants and animals from the more sheltered parts of the Iberian Peninsula spread northwards to repopulate the continent as the cold and ice receded. As we shall see, for very different reasons, our area could once again become a climate refuge.<\/p>\n
It is because of these traces of biodiversity that the 254 km\u00b2 of the Ribeira de Seixe Hydrographic Basin won a place in the Natura 2000 Network. This European Union network comprises the largest system of protected areas in the world, with the main objective of preventing further loss of species and valuable and threatened habitats. The value of this habitat lies in its being representative of the Mediterranean ecosystem featuring a particular climate with rare biological communities. Although these Mediterranean ecosystems occupy just two percent of the Earth’s surface, they are home to 20 percent of the planet’s vascular plants which is why they are vital reservoirs for both plant and animal diversity. (M\u00e9dail & Qu\u00e9zel, 2001).<\/p>\n
Protecting Mediterranean ecosystems is a priority since, as has happened to grasslands and prairies around the world, they could suffer, proportionally, the greatest loss of biodiversity in the coming decades as a result of their susceptibility to land exploitation, global warming and contamination. Room OE, et al. (2005).<\/p>\n
What does this image \u2013 looking approximately to the southeast from the Azenha creek in western Seixe \u2013 tell us about how this remnant of Mediterranean biodiversity can contribute to protecting the Natura Network system? By hovering the cursor over each of the ellipses, you will have access to a brief explanation.<\/p>\n
REFER\u00caNCIAS<\/strong> Why this image? Our website’s first photograph provides clues – see Points of Interest – about why a hidden and little-known watershed in southwest Portugal is special. Although its gentle landscape has been populated and subjected to hunting and agriculture for thousands of years, it still preserves traces of what became, at the end of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"template-panorama.php","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false},"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/terraseixe.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/534"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/terraseixe.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/terraseixe.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/terraseixe.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/terraseixe.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=534"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/terraseixe.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/534\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":882,"href":"https:\/\/terraseixe.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/534\/revisions\/882"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/terraseixe.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=534"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\n[1] M\u00e9dail, F. & Qu\u00e9zel, P. (2001) Biodiversity hotspots in the Mediterranean Basin: setting global conservation priorities. Conservation Biology 13(6), 1510\u20131513.
\n[2] Sala OE, et al. (2005) Biodiversity across scenarios. In: Millennium Ecosystem Assessment, Ecosystems and human well-being: scenarios, volume 2. Washington, DC: Island Press, pp. 375-408.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"