The consequences are a wide variety of environmental but also social problems which the island community is currently facing. One of the major threats is the sharp increase in free roaming small ruminants since the 1960s, which has led to overgrazing, soil erosion and infrastructure destruction (Biel and Tan 2014). This development threatens the conservation goals of the large NATURA 2000 sites and future core area of the planned UNESCO Biosphere Reserve (Fischer-Kowalski et al. 2011), covering more than two thirds of the mountainous island and parts of the adjacent marine area (Fig.1). In this presentation, we focus on our work with the local farming community in order to reduce grazing pressure on the island’s
ecosystems and restore areas highly afected by erosion.