Meadows – natural grasslands

We work to preserve and restore Latvia’s natural grasslands – their biodiversity and ecosystem services.

Natural meadows in Latvia can currently be considered a disappearing natural value. According to the results of the Nature Census (2021), only 0.9% or 60,000 ha of territory have been preserved in Latvia. 100 years ago, they covered one third of the country. Together with the meadows, their unique biological diversity disappears – the community of plants and other living beings that are formed only in natural meadows. Part of our past and cultural-historical identity is also disappearing – the landscape, the flower meadow songs sung by our ancestors, the blooming pastures. Perhaps we are also losing a part of the future. Products of natural meadows – meat, milk, honey – are gaining more and more appreciation all over the world due to their excellent composition and taste, and the possibilities of natural meadow products in Latvia are still undiscovered territory.

3% – this much natural meadows would be necessary for Latvia to ensure the sustainability of this ecosystem and its associated species.

Natural meadows provide essential ecosystem services for our existence – they provide a home for pollinators, reduce the spread of invasive species, reduce the risk of floods and soil erosion, participate in climate regulation.

Natural grasslands are disappearing mainly for two reasons – they are abandoned and overgrown, or they are plowed up to grow crops. This is related to modern agricultural practices, as well as the existing agricultural policy, which has made the preservation and management of natural meadows unprofitable for farmers. In order for natural meadows to exist, they need management – mowing or grazing, because as diverse habitats they have been formed in the interaction of man, livestock and nature over many hundreds of years.

By losing natural meadows, we would lose as much in terms of natural diversity if all the other Latvian grasslands disappeared together.

The Latvian Nature Foundation implements various projects related to natural meadows, their restoration and preservation. Our main principles:

• A scientific, planned and purposeful approach to the restoration and preservation of meadows
• Close cooperation with farmers – managers of natural meadows
• Working with agricultural policy to achieve more favorable conditions for the management of natural grasslands
• Highlighting and popularizing the value of natural meadows in society

In order to restore natural meadows in hard-to-manage areas, since 2019, the mobile herd of the Latvian Nature Foundation has been operating – a herd of beef cattle of the Galloway breed, which travels through different parts of Latvia during the grazing season, grazing the territories of natural meadows.