Scenarios for long term conservation of Swedish semi-natural grasslands with limited climate impact

Semi-natural grasslands are among Europe’s most species-rich habitats but are rapidly declining due to agricultural intensification, abandonment, and afforestation. Maintaining and expanding these habitats requires continued livestock grazing, raising potential conflicts with climate mitigation goals, particularly commitments to reduce methane emissions. This study explores production-side interventions that could increase grazing of semi-natural grasslands in Sweden under different caps on enteric methane emissions. Using a spatially explicit agri-food systems model (CIBUSmod), we combined regional estimates of grassland productivity with potential restoration areas to assess the impacts of the interventions on the maximum area of semi-natural grasslands that could be managed as well as effects on livestock production, cropland use, and greenhouse gas emissions. We evaluated scenarios including rearing male cattle as steers, prolonging dry periods or delaying culling of dairy cows, expanding winter lamb production, increasing horse grazing, and combinations thereof. Results show that with all interventions combined, the grazed area of semi-natural grasslands could increase by 0.5 Mha under constant methane emissions, nearly doubling current areas. Even under a 30% methane reduction, an additional 0.2 Mha (+ 38%) could be managed. Among the individual interventions, rearing steers, expanding winter lamb production, and increasing horse grazing showed the greatest potential to expand semi-natural grassland areas, although all interventions contributed when combined. Greenhouse gas emissions per hectare of grazed semi-natural grassland declined across all scenarios, but emissions per unit of edible protein generally rose, underscoring tensions between efficiency-oriented climate metrics and biodiversity goals. Achieving large-scale restoration in practice will require stronger market incentives, targeted policy support, and investments in rural infrastructure. This study demonstrates that it is technically feasible to expand grazing in semi-natural grasslands while containing climate impacts, but only if biodiversity and climate objectives are explicitly balanced when designing future food system policies.