Ecological and social challenges to biodiversity conservation on farmland: reconnecting habitats on a landscape scale

Abstract

1.Landscape level planning is essential if agri-environment schemes (AESs) are to reduce the fragmentation and vulnerability of many mammal populations. But if AESs are to work at the landscape level, then some form of planning and/or targeting of participating farmers may be required. 2.We developed an integrated, landscape-scale project in the Chichester Plains, where we demonstrated that farmer participation in conservation work could be enhanced by offering greater temporal flexibility and bespoke design of projects in synergy with business needs. 3. We adapted an existing model of farmer behaviour, based on farmers' responses to attitudinal questions, and applied this to farmers in two regions of England, the Chichester Plains and the Upper Thames. The model predicted farmer uptake of AESs with 79% accuracy. 4. We postulate that the effectiveness of AESs at the landscape level could be enhanced by using ecological models to identify suitable tracts of habitat, and then by using simple behavioural models to identify the farmers in appropriate areas who are most likely to adopt the conservation schemes. Finally, in order to maximize the likelihood of farmers joining the scheme, we would recommend working with farmers on a one-to-one basis in order to tailor the details of the AES to their particular ecological and business situations.

Incentivising collaborative conservation: Lessons from existing environmental Stewardship Scheme options

“…However, approaches 6-10 will impose two additional costs. They will require the development of (i) landscape-scale management options (for example, in some areas sequential harvesting of neighbouring fields may be of particular advantage) 12 and (ii) of landscape-scale plans, which a variety of authors consider a pre-requisite to collaborative management (Goldman et al, 2007a;Concepción et al, 2008;Dutton et al, 2008;Parkhurst et al, 2002;Parkhurst and Shogren, 2007;Prager et al, 2012;Sutherland et al, 2012). These requirements will place additional demands on the science underpinning landscape-scale management options and ecological network planning.…”

“…This means judging between comparative plans, which is somewhat simpler than identifying an optimum plan. Although developing outline plans will incur high up-front costs they underpin an approach that should deliver substantial environmental benefits (Dutton et al, 2008). Therefore, government (or its managing agency) should be responsible for providing landscape-scale plans and comparing alternative proposals (Goldman et al, 2007a;Parkhurst et al, 2002;Prager et al, 2012;Parkhurst and Shogren, 2007).…”

Landowners’ ability to leverage in negotiations over habitat conservation

“…To estimate conservation costs, these studies rely on estimates of the market value of alternative land uses, which, at best, provide partial estimates of landowners' WTA conservation agreements (Dutton et al 2008;Guerrero et al 2010;Knight et al 2010). In principle, a voluntary transaction between a conservation group and landowner could go ahead as long as the conservation group's WTP for conservation on the site exceeds the landowner's WTA.…”

Verder vergroenen, verder verbreden : naar een effectieve bijdrage van het Europees landbouwbeleid en beleid voor agrarisch natuurbeheer aan groene opgaven

“…Dat gaat op voor bijvoorbeeld de habitat van vogels, voor de kwaliteit van het oppervlaktewater en voor kenmerkende structuren van landschapselementen (Herzon & Hellenius, 2008;Opdam et al 2001). Ondanks dat een top-down gecoördineerde ruimtelijke samenhang uitvoerbaar is (zie bijvoorbeeld Dutton et al 2008), wordt meestal een collectieve aanpak van het beheer aanbevolen om die landschapsschaal te bereiken (Franks et al 2011;Prager et al 2012;. Daarmee wordt beoogd dat boeren met elkaar samenwerken in de uitvoering van het beheer en met elkaar afstemmen wie welke maatregelen waar wanneer uitvoert.…”