The rapid decline of semi-natural grasslands in Japan threatens many relic and endemic species. There is insufficient knowledge on how the impacts of land-use changes and management of grasslands have been affecting grassland ecosystems and what conservation measures may be taken to conserve as much of existing plant diversity as possible. The aim of our study was to assess the efficiency of the existing management regimes for conservation of grassland species. We conducted our study in four districts of Kushima, Kyushu, south-west Japan with different land-use histories. We documented historical land use changes (for the years 1947, 1974 and 2003) of each district. Next, we compared species richness, plant density and environmental condition in six grassland types: regularly burnt, regularly mown, paddy levee, roadside, landslip and wetland communities in a total of 289 1m x 1m quadrats, recorded in 172 grassland patches. Grassland types differed in their ability to support grassland species: regularly burnt grasslands were the richest in Red Data Book (RDB) species and poorest in alien species, followed by regularly mown grasslands, paddy levees, and landslip, wetland and roadside communities.