Extremadura Guide Eng 2016

3

NATURAL SPACES

E

Extremadura is one of those rare places in Europe where it is still possible to maintain a close relations- hip with nature at its purest on a daily basis. Its socio- demographic oddities, such as its low population density or the traditional sustainable exploitation of the resources of the pastures, have enabled the region to enter the 21st Century with an excellently preser- ved environmental heritage. The biodiversity of Extremadura is surprising. The huge variety of ecosystems and landscape, from the mediterranean to deciduous forests, from semi steppe conditions to some of the greatest wetlands on the European continent, today offer habitat and in some cases a last/final/remote refuge to numerous species of flora and fauna. It is for this reason that almost 30% of the region’s land is under some sort of environmental protection scheme.

27