Evaluating current European agri-environment schemes to quantify and improve nature conservation efforts in agricultural landscapes (EASY)
Research question
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Spain
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Switzerland
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The Netherlands
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Agri-environment schemes play an increasingly important role in European CAP (Common Agricultural Policy) to support biodiversity and environment in agricultural landscapes. They have been implemented since 1992 and now cost a yearly 1.7 billion Euro. Still, there is no conclusive evidence that these schemes actually do contribute to the conservation of particularly biodiversity. The primary objective of this project is to evaluate the (cost-) effectiveness of European agri-environment schemes in protecting biodiversity and to determine the primary processes that determine their effectiveness. This project furthermore aims to determine how CAP may be introduced in candidate EU-members without unacceptable loss of biodiversity. It will provide simple guidelines how researchers, governmental authorities may efficiently evaluate agri-environmental measures.
Aim
Agri-environment schemes have been used to protect biodiversity and environment in agricultural areas since 1992. Their effectiveness has never been reliably evaluated. This project aims to evaluate the (cost-)effectiveness of agri-environment schemes with respect to biodiversity conservation in five European countries. It will determine the proper scales that have to be addressed for conservation efforts for a range of species groups. It will determine the most important environmental factors that influence the effectiveness of the schemes. Based on this, recommendations will be made how the effectiveness of schemes may be improved and simple guidelines will be produced how ecological effects of agri-environment schemes can be evaluated efficiently by governmental authorities or other institutions. The ecological effects of the introduction of CAP in a candidate EU-member will be investigated to reduce negative side effects of anticipated land-use changes
Scientific methods
We will examine the effectiveness of agri-environment schemes by surveying pairs of fields: a field with an agri-environment scheme and a nearby field that is conventionally managed. In five countries, in each country in three areas, and in each area on seven pairs of fields the species richness of birds, plants and three insect groups (pollinators, herbivores, predators) will be determined. Effects of schemes on pollination efficiency and pest control will be examined using indicator communities. Correlative studies will examine the effects of landscape structure, land-use intensity and species pool on the effectiveness of agri-environmental measures. The spatial scale that is relevant to nature conservation efforts will be investigated via the spatial distribution of species groups. The results will be used to formulate recommendations how to improve the effectiveness of agri-environment schemes and to construct a set of simple guidelines how schemes can be evaluated efficiently yet reliably.
Present work
The WSL team is involved in WP 2 (spatial scale) and WP 5 (ecosystem processes). A PhD-student (with Prof. Bernhard Schmid, Inst. für Umweltwissenschaften, Univ. Zuerich) was appointed in March 2003. Field work for both WPs started in April 2003. Koordination with the other Swiss partner, FAL Reckenholz, was established.
State of knowledge
The WSL team Fauna has been involved in research on the contribution of ecological compensation areas to regional biodiversity in agricultural landscapes for many years (WSL Proj. Faunenaustausch, Inventurmethoden, Oekologischer Ausgleich) and produced over 20 publications on that topic (e.g. Duelli, P., Obrist, M.K. 2003. Regional biodiversity in an agricultural landscape: The contribution of seminatural habitats. Basic and Applied Ecology 4: 129-138. Duelli, P., Studer, M., Marchand, I., Jakob, S. 1990. Population movements of arthropods between natural and cultivated areas. Biological Conservation 54: 193-207.).
The incentive for the approval for this EU-project was certainly given by the controversial paper of David Kleijn et al. in Nature, where they showed that in the Netherlands there was no significant difference in the species richness of several target groups between fields with or without agri-environment schemes (Kleijn D, Berendse F, Smit R, Gilissen N, 2001. Agri-environment schemes do not effectively protect biodiversity in Dutch agricultural landscapes. Nature 413: 723-725). Our research partners at FAL Reckenholz have an ongoing BLW-project on the same topic, where our WSL-team is also marginally involved (RBA).
Importance for science and management
The project outcome is of high political relevance for handling agri-environmental schemes in the future. The publication in Nature (Kleijn et al. 2001), where no significant effects of agri-environmental schemes was found for the four investigated taxa, created serious concerns among EU officials in agricultural politics. In Switzerland, the system for ecological compensation measures is different: 90% (instead of only 20% in EU) of the farmers are involved in compensation schemes. They are additionally payed for measurable qualitative improvements in biodiversity (Oeko-Qualitaetsverordnung). We therefore assume that in the Swiss project we will find significant differences between ecological compensation areas and neighbouring grassland. And we even hope to show how far into the conventional grassland there is a positive influence of the ecological compensation areas. So this project may also prove that the Swiss system is more effective in protecting and enhancing biodiversity in agricultural landscapes than the current standard EU-approaches.
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