Reconciling biodiversity conservation and agricultural expansion in the subarctic environment of Iceland

Abstract

ABSTRACT. Intensified agricultural practices have driven biodiversity loss throughout the world, and although many actions aimed at halting and reversing these declines have been developed, their effectiveness depends greatly on the willingness of stakeholders to take part in conservation management. Knowledge of the willingness and capacity of landowners to engage with conservation can therefore be key to designing successful management strategies in agricultural land. In Iceland, agriculture is currently at a relatively low intensity but is very likely to expand in the near future. At the same time, Iceland supports internationally important breeding populations of many ground-nesting birds that could be seriously impacted by further expansion of agricultural activities. To understand the views of Icelandic farmers toward bird conservation, given the current potential for agricultural expansion, 62 farms across Iceland were visited and farmers were interviewed, using a structured questionnaire survey in which respondents indicated of a series of future actions. Most farmers intend to increase the area of cultivated land in the near future, and despite considering having rich birdlife on their land to be very important, most also report they are unlikely to specifically consider bird conservation in their management, even if financial compensation were available. However, as no agri-environment schemes are currently in place in Iceland, this concept is highly unfamiliar to Icelandic farmers. Nearly all respondents were unwilling, and thought it would be impossible, to delay harvest, but many were willing to consider sparing important patches of land and/or maintaining existing pools within fields (a key habitat feature for breeding waders). Farmers' views on the importance of having rich birdlife on their land and their willingness to participate in bird conservation provide a potential platform for the codesign of conservation management with landowners before further substantial changes in the extent of agriculture take place in this subarctic landscape.

Integrating Local Ecological Knowledge for Waterbird Conservation: Insights From Kavango-Zambezi Transfrontier Conservation Area, Zimbabwe

“…From our data, it is difficult to pinpoint major factors affecting waders (that had 36.4% of citations mentioning decline), as both climatic and natural drivers had an influence on them (through wetlands mechanisms that impact on resources). This could be because waders are a very diverse group that have a significant proportion of their members surviving some pressures in the environment through migrations (Kilpatrick et al, 2006) and probably contains some of the smallest waterbirds that people in most cases would not have specific knowledge on (J ohannesd ottir, Alves, Gill, & Gunnarsson, 2017).…”

Icelandic meadow-breeding waders: status, threats and conservation challenges

“…Agricultural expansion in Iceland is ongoing and, in a recent questionnaire study, the majority of Icelandic farmers surveyed reported that they are likely to expand their agricultural land within the next five years (Jóhannesdóttir et al 2017). To what extent that proposed expansion will be carried out remains uncertain, but Icelandic farmers own the majority of land below 400 m a.s.l.…”

“…National legislation is not well developed to deal with the cumulative impacts of the current rapid changes in land use on biodiversity, or with selective habitat protection at the scale of individual farms. Nevertheless, a recent study shows that farmers consider it important to have diverse birdlife on their land, and many report that they would be willing to participate in land management actions aimed at protecting and conserving birdlife (Jóhannesdóttir et al 2017). One management action that is currently available to farmers is funding to restore wetlands, but its implementation has been slow (7 km 2 have been restored in the last two decades), although farmers have been increasingly interested in restoration options (Barkarson et al 2016).…”

Use of agricultural land by breeding waders in low‐intensity farming landscapes

“…Each farm was surveyed twice: early, from midMay till mid-June, encompassing most egg-laying and incubation (peak nest initiation for the main species concerned is late May); and late, from mid-June to mid-July, the period that primarily encompasses chick rearing (Gunnarsson, 2010). At each location, all birds were counted along one line transect per management level (Bibby et al, 2000;J ohannesd ottir et al, 2014). As size and shape of agricultural fields can vary substantially, transect length and width were limited by field size (each transect was located within a single field) but the single observer (LJ) aimed to keep the surveyed area similar to ensure constant survey effort (average transect length (AE SD) = 253 AE 75 m; width = 92 AE 24 m, corresponding to an average survey area (AE SD) of 2.3 AE 0.8 ha).…”