Portugal - Montado, Cultural Landscape

The Montado is a cultural landscape shaped by human activity. Over the ages mankind has been able to mould and sustain a multifunctional agro-silvo-pastoral ecosystem located in the south of the Tagus Valley. These areas were originally occupied by Mediterranean woodlands and are now populated by cork oaks and holm oaks - legally protected species since the 7th century - which grow in extreme edaphic-climatic conditions and very poor soils. Located in southern Europe, with a rich and wide variety of cultural influences, where the frontier between the Christian and Arab worlds was disputed during almost five centuries (up until the 13th century), the Montado has been influenced by a significant presence of military orders and a long period of feudal rule. Currently it still preserves remnants from previous epochs, in an economy that is sustained by the worldwide expansion of industrial cork production.