Upgrading of dry meadows in the Engadine

We spent a week in the beautiful Lower Engadine with six volunteers and a mission leader. For four out of five days we worked on a steep south-facing slope between Ardez and Ftan for Pro Terra Engiadina. It is a wonderful dry grassland of national importance and the variety of plants and insects is immediately noticeable. We have rarely seen such a species-rich meadow of this size. The aim of the week was to clear part of the area of the spreading bushes and trees. We could easily have extended this work to a whole month and still not finished. The problem of bushes encroaching on valuable grasslands exists everywhere. The Lower Engadine in particular is particularly rich in these endangered pearls. The management that allowed these cultural landscapes to develop over centuries has changed. Hay meadows have become pastures and fewer and fewer animals graze these areas. Goats in particular, which are best at keeping the bushes under control, are much fewer than they used to be. Due to the mechanization of agriculture, fewer and fewer people are working on farms, so that labor-intensive work such as pasture maintenance is neglected.

Knowing this long-term development is important for our work. In the snapshot, the shrub groups and stepped edges towards the forest form beautiful and ecologically sensible structures. But it is just too much of a good thing and is advancing rapidly. The variety of woody species that we cut corresponds roughly to the range of a dream hedge, such as we plant in other places. Our chainsaws cut down magnificent specimens of buckthorn, white buckthorn, black buckthorn and sea buckthorn, privet, barberries, various wild roses, rowan berries, serviceberry and juniper, small spruce, pine and birch. As a consolation, we deliberately leave individual serviceberry or buckthorn trees standing, which we rarely come across. During the work, we were able to see clearly how the variety of herbaceous plants under the shrubs is smaller than in the open areas and thus recognize the effect of our intervention. Beneficiaries include rock rose, stone thyme, cypress spurge, bedstraw, cornflowers and certainly also some rarer species.

Wednesday provided a little variety with the use of goldenrod at an excavation site on the Inn. Because we intervened relatively early, the population was manageable and we were able to remove most of the goldenrod, including its roots, in one day. We only had to mow a section of around 50 square meters due to time constraints.

We enjoyed the beautiful weather, the enormous variety of plants and flowers and the idyllic Lower Engadine. Regular botany interludes helped to motivate us during the hard work. On a lovely evening after work we went for a walk through larch forests and a picturesque moorland landscape near Tarasp. Another time we went on a trip to the thermal baths with sauna. The accommodation was a charming Engadine house in the village center of Scuol with a beautiful kitchen and plenty of space. We had a great week with a good atmosphere and good experiences. But we also know that the cut bushes will sprout again and the work will start again. But that has always been the case. That is why we are hoping for goats to help keep the open areas open. But we would also be happy to come back ;-)