Harmonizing Biodiversity Conservation and Productivity in the Context of Increasing Demands on Landscapes

Abstract

Biodiversity conservation and agricultural production are often seen as mutually exclusive objectives. Strategies for reconciling them are intensely debated. We argue that harmonization between biodiversity conservation and crop production can be improved by increasing our understanding of the underlying relationships between them. We provide a general conceptual framework that links biodiversity and agricultural production through the separate relationships between land use and biodiversity and between land use and production. Hypothesized relationships are derived by synthesizing existing empirical and theoretical ecological knowledge. The framework suggests nonlinear relationships caused by the multifaceted impacts of land use (composition, configuration, and intensity). We propose solutions for overcoming the apparently dichotomous aims of maximizing either biodiversity conservation or agricultural production and suggest new hypotheses that emerge from our proposed framework.

A bird’s eye view over ecosystem services in Natura 2000 sites across Europe

“…Direct negative impacts on individuals are another main cause of trade-offs, for example through physical harm to young and mature birds, damage by chemical runoff or poisonous compounds as well as noise pollution or disturbance caused by recreational activities (Table 1). However, we also find a surprising number of positive impacts, which indicate a synergistic relationship between conservation and ES use, such as increasing the availability and/or quality of food resources and habitats, maintaining some habitats that are historically human-dominated (mainly grasslands in parts of Europe), which supports earlier conceptual considerations (Seppelt et al 2016) and similar empirical findings (Maes et al 2012). The examples we extracted from the management plans (Table 1) suggest that more traditional land-use types such as pond aquaculture and extensive livestock may help creating and maintaining synergies between ES use and conservation goals.…”

Large scale land acquisitions and REDD+: a synthesis of conflicts and opportunities

“…The Land sparing concept (or segregation) suggests that increasing the output on agricultural land reduces the need to increase agricultural areas (Kastner et al 2012, Stevenson et al 2013. Specifically, technology-induced intensification is supposed to be land saving at the global level (Byerlee et al 2014) but could potentially have negative effects on productivity (Seppelt et al 2016). Secondly, available or degraded land can be used for LSLA, again avoiding the need to acquire forested areas (Carter et al 2015).…”

Bright spots in agricultural landscapes: Identifying areas exceeding expectations for multifunctionality and biodiversity

“…land sparing/sharing, sustainable intensification, ecological intensification, diversified farming systems and closing the yield gap; Bommarco, Kleijn, & Potts, 2013;Kremen, Iles, & Bacon, 2012;Perfecto & Vandermeer, 2010;Phalan, Green, & Balmford, 2014;Phalan, Onial, Balmford, & Green, 2011;Tilman, Balzer, Hill, & Befort, 2011). These discussions have prompted ecological research on the effect of food production on biodiversity and the environment, and introspection into the sustainability of ensuring long-term food availability (Seppelt et al, 2016;Wittman et al, 2017); however, they have largely neglected the complex multifunctionality of agricultural landscapes (Wittman et al, 2017). Some research on agricultural landscapes as complex systems has employed a social-ecological lens (Lescourret et al, 2015), which recognizes that the food-environment dilemma is shaped by key drivers with complex dynamics and feedbacks, and may differ or interact across spatiotemporal scales (Fischer et al, 2015;Fischer, Abson, Bergsten, French Collier, et al, 2017;Wittman et al, 2017).…”