Degradation of soil and vegetation has been investigated in one burned area with Mediterranean macchia located at Is Olias, in the Rio Santa Lucia catchments in southwestern Sardinia (Italy). The land uses considered are representative of situations commonly found throughout the island. The botanical investigation showed that the renewal of the natural vegetation on abandoned land is only seemingly a slow process, that the burned areas can be restored in quite a short time, especially when undisturbed by grazing which hinders the development of suckers of the evergreen sclerophylls. What is more, growth rates are far too slow to make wood production economically viable. The results of the investigation provide useful indications for steering land management strategies towards policies compatible with sustainable development, and stress the importance of understanding, through the experimental data, the degrading effects that certain choices of land use can produce.