“Historical signs in the landscape”: Ecosystem services, motivation and challenges of pollarding in Western Norway

Pollarding in agroforestry systems was traditionally an important practice for fodder acquisition in Western Norway, as well as in many other parts of the world. The practice has long been in decline, but to maintain cultural landscapes and biodiversity enhancement from pollarding, farmers now receive a public grant for each tree they pollard. In this interdisciplinary study we investigate which ecosystem services modern pollarding practices provide, under the influence of the current pollarding policy. We have performed both in-depth interviews and a quantitative survey targeting all pollarding farmers in the county of Vestland in Western Norway. We find that bioresources obtained from the branches from pollarding are to some extent still taken into use, mainly in the form of tree fodder for farm animals and firewood, but a lot of the branches remain unused. Biodiversity benefits are obtained from preserving old trees that often are located on agricultural land as solitary trees, as these trees provide important habitats, particularly for species growing on the bark, such as lichens and mosses, or within the decaying wood, such as, for example, fungi and insects. The modern practice of letting branches rot in the field provide habitats for insects and hence additional benefits to biodiversity. For the farmers, the main motivations to pollard are the cultural, aesthetic and historical values of pollarded trees. They see few disadvantages with pollarding, and most of them plan to continue in the future. The grant provides an incentive for pollarding, but our results indicate that the practice would continue without it, although less than now, especially with the establishment of new pollards.