Major challenges of existing land resource management
The land users choose particular activities and management practices to use the land and its resources to satisfy their needs. Major challenges of existing land resource management are relate to geographic location and limited access to infrastructure, high land fragmentation, migration, changes in social values, family size and social structure, global competition, regional, national and European policies, stage of land degradation. Increasing demands for food favors monocultures. International migration from developing to developed countries provides cheap labor that support agricultural production but also pressures on land resources. The first-generation CAP subsidies targeted agricultural product growth and farmer income support. They have favored agricultural intensification through unsustainable land management practices. Another influential policy on land resources management was the financial support (direct funding, loans, etc.), through the Structural Funds (SF) and the Cohesion Fund (CF), for regional development programs and environmental protection works, especially in areas lagging behind in development. Tourism policies and the particular environment of Crete have favoured the uncontrolled development of tourism in the area. The result was overbuilding of coastal and sensitive areas, land use change from farmland and pastures to tourism, abandonment of low productivity land, over-exploitation of water resources, shifting of irrigated to non-irrigated practices in olive groves, etc. In some cases land has been abandoned as a result of external driving forces, such as market changes, or internal changes, for example if the system crosses some invisible threshold, such as the critical soil depth for plant growth.
