100 years of change: examining agricultural trends, habitat change and stakeholder perceptions through the 20th century

Abstract

Summary 1.The 20th century has witnessed substantial increases in the intensity of agricultural land management, much of which has been driven by policies to enhance food security and production. The knock-on effects in agriculturally dominated landscapes include habitat degradation and biodiversity loss. We examine long-term patterns of agricultural and habitat change at a regional scale, using the Peak District of northern England as a case study. As stakeholders are central to the implementation of successful land-use policy, we also assess their perceptions of historical changes. 2. In the period 1900 to 2000, there was a fivefold rise in sheep density, along with higher cattle density. We found a reduction in the number of farms, evidence of a shift in land ownership patterns, and increased agricultural specialization, including the virtual disappearance of upland arable production. 3. Despite previous studies showing a substantial loss in heather cover, we found that there had been no overall change in the proportion of land covered by dwarf shrub moor. Nonetheless, turnover rates were high, with only 55% of sampled sites maintaining dwarf shrub moor coverage between 1913 and 2000. 4. Stakeholders identified many of the changes revealed by the historical data, such as increased sheep numbers, fewer farms and greater specialization. However, other land-use changes were not properly described. For instance, although there had been no overall change in the proportion of dwarf shrub moor and the size of the rural labour force had not fallen, stakeholders reported a decline in both. Spatial heterogeneity of the changes, shifting baselines and problems with historical data sources might account for some of these discrepancies. 5. Synthesis and applications . A marked increase in sheep numbers, combined with general agricultural intensification, have been the dominant land-use processes in the Peak District during the 20th century. Stakeholders only correctly perceived some land-use changes. Policy and management objectives should therefore be based primarily on actual historical evidence. However, understanding stakeholder perceptions and how they differ from, or agree with, the available evidence will contribute to the successful uptake of land management policies and partly determine the costs of policy implementation.

Late Holocene regime shifts in moorland ecosystems: high resolution data from the Pennines, UK

“…In particular, there is a lack of data on the dynamics of non-eroding communities during recent centuries, when severe impacts have emerged. This creates uncertainty about the extent of moorland turnover (Dallimer et al 2009) and the role of burning in sustainable management (Lee et al 2013). Extrapolating across heterogeneous upland terrain may underestimate the extent of past spatial heterogeneity and temporal variability (Davies and Tipping 2004;Fyfe and Woodbridge 2012), so high spatial-resolution pollen analyses from different peatland habitats can usefully be employed to address these issues.…”

How should we incentivize private landowners to 'produce' more biodiversity?

“…Agricultural activity continues to be heavily subsidized in many countries, and such subsidies have in the past been argued to result in an intensification of production and an expansion of the area of land under farming which resulted in species declines for fauna and flora (Bowers and Cheshire, 1983; see also references in Dallimer et al, 2009). Reducing or removing agricultural subsidies might thus result in an improvement in the conservation status of many farmland species, although such impacts are not likely to be uniform in direction or extent across species .…”

“…For example, assume that the action needed to increase abundance of a particular bird species is to reduce livestock grazing intensity, and that this is costly for the farmer. A given reduction in grazing intensity can produce varying responses in terms of bird abundance for reasons to do with the characteristics of an individual site (eg its soil type, altitude, or exposure), the characteristics of neighbouring areas (eg the presence of woodland within 100 metres), and current grazing intensities already present on the site (Dallimer et al, 2009). For species protection programmes, actions by a given landowner, for example in refraining from felling of old growth forest, may have marginal pay-offs in terms of species recovery which vary with distance to the nearest existing population of the species.…”

Reservoir Rehabilitations: Seeking the Fountain of Youth

“…This phenomenon illustrates that the desired minimum quality line ( Figure 1A) can fall at different points along the curve that defines most quality measures used to assess the need for rehabilitation of reservoirs. We anticipate that harmony among fishery managers and stakeholders will be greatest when perspectives are similar and efforts are made to enhance communication through forums, such as public meetings, yet we doubt that that scenario is frequently realized given the myriad of interests among stakeholders (Hein et al 2006;Dallimer et al 2009). Therefore, we believe that it is imperative that all involved understand the reservoir aging process and what is or is not feasible given the specific state of a reservoir.…”