A new, comprehensive study shows that Europe’s landscapes over the past more than 20 million years have predominantly been a mosaic of grasslands, scrub and woodlands of varying density. A light-filled, flower-rich open woodland shaped by grazing animals as a decisive ecological force – not a dark closed-canopy forest. This means that current reforestation practices are on the wrong track – both in Denmark, where subsidies are only granted for planting dense forests, and elsewhere in Europe. "This will not only be harmful for biodiversity; it will be in direct contradiction to the type of ecosystems that Europe’s species have evolved in over millions of years," says senior author Profesor Jens-Christian Svenning.