Estonia - Wooded meadows (Laelatu, Kalli-Nedrema, Mäepea, Allika, Tagamoisa, Loode, Koiva, Halliste)

Wooded meadows are traditional seminatural communities that few hundred years ago were widespread in the countries around the Baltic Sea but also in other parts of Europe. They are sparse natural wooded areas with regularly mown herb layer where the characteristic appearance and species composition preserves only as a result of traditional agricultural activities: mowing or/and grazing. In terms of appearance and ecological conditions, wooded meadows are similar to parks, yet are considerably older and initially arose from natural communities. Wooded meadows are one of the oldest ecosystems that have arisen through the interactions between man and nature in the forest zone. Most probably the first communities similar to wooded meadows started to appear around the early settlements about 7000-8000 years ago. As a result of wider development of animal husbandry in Estonian areas about 4000 years ago the importance of wooded meadows continuously grew. Historically the distribution of wooded meadows and pastures has been very wide, likely encompassing a large proportion of animal husbandry regions in the temperate zone, but mown wooded meadows were typical only of Northern Europe.