Effectiveness of specific stocking rates to avoid habitat deterioration, applied in accordance to the Italian GAEC standard 4.6 (ex 4.1c) of cross compliance

The present paper aims at providing an evaluation of the effectiveness of the application of GAEC standard 4.6 (ex 4.1c) of cross compliance in the Italian grazing system, in the light of the recent bibliography. Given the changes occurred in the last decades and the effects of application of the rule, the latter appears broadly positive but susceptible of adjustments. Nowadays the Italian grazing system is no longer characterized by a problem of overstocking, which led the legislator, in the past, to identify and enforce the limit of 4 LU/Ha as maximum stocking rate. The problem is probably the opposite: the too low rate and the absence of animals on many grazing areas of Italy. These areas, when totally abandoned by pastoral herding, have evolved, or rather convoluted, towards a shrub vegetation of nutritional and landscape low value. Recent bibliography shows, on one side, the value of 3 LU/ha as high rate, while on the other side, it speaks of need or urgency to maintain a minimal stocking rate for the conservation of pastures, otherwise overgrown by bushes and plants not appetite by animals. With these statements, here we propose an update of stocking rate limits, subordinated to individual interventions by Regions for specific situations: minimum 0.3 LU/ha, maximum 3 LU/ha, and suggest Regional supplementary measures, mostly concerning the study for locating macro-areas (zoning) and specific stocking rates, which ought not be less than 25% of the potential rate in any case.