Marseille, France Photograph by Pedro Regato/ WWF   Western Europe: Northeastern Spain and southern France Mediterranean Forests, Woodlands, and Scrub   35,000 square miles (90,700 square kilometers) -- about half the size of North Dakota Critical/Endangered

· Corks along the Coast
· Special Features
· Did You Know?
· Wild Side
· Cause for Concern
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Corks along the Coast

This coastal Mediterranean ecoregion is important for both humans and wildlife. The forests and wetlands here harbor many species of birds, including flamingos, lesser gray shrikes, spoonbills, and all types of European herons. Bats are also abundant in the wetlands, helping to control the mosquitoes and other insects found here.

Special Features

Cork is harvested from the renewable outer bark of the cork oak tree, one of the dominant species in this ecoregion. Normal harvesting does not damage the tree and instead stimulates new growth, with a mature cork sheath growing back in nine years. The cork industry is one of the few that uses trees for raw material without using them up. Each tree can remain commercially productive for up to 150 years or more. Along the French coast, extensive forests of holm oak mix with smaller pockets of cork oak. Holm oak forests extend into Spain, where they mix with an encina oak subspecies. On the Balearic Islands, oaks grow alongside juniper, locust, and olive trees. The climate here is mild, with rain falling mainly in the winter.

	The pygmy white-toothed shrew can be seen here, if you can find it. It is one of the world’s smallest mammals, with a body measuring only two inches (5 cm) in length. In addition to the Mediterranean oak forest, the shrew lives in abandoned buildings.

Wild Side

Among the most interesting creatures found here is the Hermann’s tortoise. These yellow and black tortoises are frequently taken from the wild and kept as pets, which causes further decreases in a wild population already suffering from habitat loss. The Iberian spadefoot toad is also suffering because of habitat destruction. The ladder snake, however, is common in this ecoregion. It grows up to 70 inches (180 cm) long. Other reptiles include grass snakes, three-toed skinks, spiny-footed lizards, Iberian wall lizards, and the mildly poisonous Montpellier snake. Ancestors of domestic sheep, called mouflon, can be found at high altitudes. Spanish ibex, a type of mountain goat, may be seen foraging in sparse oak and pine forests in the spring after leaving the Pyrenees Mountains near the border between France and Spain. Southern chamois also venture down from the mountains. Red and fallow deer, wild boars, beech martens, and red foxes also thrive in these forests.

Cause for Concern

The destruction of coastal areas and forests for tourism and agriculture is on the rise, posing a serious threat to this ecoregion’s biodiversity.

For more information on this ecoregion, go to the World Wildlife Fund Scientific Report.