Extensive livestock farming in the mountains of the Pyrenees helps to preserve the mosaic landscape, which is characterised by a high degree of biodiversity. But the gradual abandonment of this livestock practice in recent decades favors the process of deforestation of pastures and the consequent substitution of the mosaic landscape. Meadow habitats, which are typical of the landscape, are replaced by bushes and forests that have a lower degree of biodiversity. This paper makes a diagnosis of the state of the subalpine pastures of the Parc Natural de l’Alt Pirineu, specifically in the Isil Mountains in two different study areas. The intention is to carry out floristic inventories of subalpine meadows and to evaluate the ecological status through bioindicator species, as well as to determine how the degree of forest cover influences the aforementioned florístic composition and the biodiversity of high mountain pastures. The results indicate that the study area has a negative trend in population, livestock and livestock holdings. Intensive grazing in the Salau area has negative effects on the richness and diversity of species. Even so, the area of Clavera, characterized by a greater woodland, presents an impoverishment in terms of the floristic population. Although there is a significant relationship between study areas and richness and between study areas and diversity, no significant relationship has been found between richness and diversity and the degree of matting. In the Salau area there is a lower presence of plants characteristic of meadows in favor of a greater covering of ruderal plants and others due to the intensification of grazing. The coating of plants characteristic of meadows and brushes does change according to the degree of matting. In the case of pollinating and nutritional plants, it is shown that there is a negative relationship in terms of the degree of maturation. Taking into account the nutritional value of each plant for the animals, there is a greater cover of forbias and grasses in the meadows. Finally, it has been observed with the meadow evaluation protocol that in the Clavera area all the meadows have a level of floristic quality better than Salau. Therefore, this work demonstrates the importance of keeping livestock pressure appropriate to the area and at the same time preventing the abandonment of high mountain areas as livestock meadows. In this way, the mosaic landscape is favoured and, therefore, a great biodiversity is maintained
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