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Roadmap for transformative agriculture: From research through policy towards a liveable future in Europe
Abstract
Agriculture needs to be fundamentally transformed to be able to live up to and achieve Sustainable Development Goals and thereby improve its contribution to human well-being, as its outputs recently crossed global and European planetary boundaries. Reducing the use of agrochemicals by 75–86%, restoring 2/3 of the land to biodiversity rich habitats and achieving net zero emissions are the key measures to return to the path within the boundaries. Some recent policy initiatives, such as the EU Green Deal and the Kunming–Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework, set targets for such transformations by 2030. However, if these are not fully applied, no more progress can be expected than from previous failed environmental policies. We identified knowledge gaps, imbalances and other challenges, and we propose a roadmap to transform agriculture: fill knowledge gaps with research that links yield and income with ecosystem services; improve diet and nutrition; improve water retention; develop farming for both biodiversity and carbon sequestration. We argue that traditional farming systems and their knowledge holders can provide key information for setting the baselines of transformative agriculture. As a second step, capacities for a well-functioning science–policy interface need to be strengthened, where diverse evidence is used and harmonised to achieve an overarching nature-positive policy framework. Finally, we stress that implementation should be coherent by 2030 and set the path for transformation so that by 2050, European agriculture can provide healthy food and fair livelihoods in a healthy environment.
... Evidence shows that biodiversity is rapidly declining worldwide, suggesting previous policies were inefficient in tackling the process (Tryjanowski et al., 2011, Díaz et al., 2019, Rounsevell et al., 2020, Báldi et al., 2023. However, new policies, like the EU's Green Deal and Biodiversity Strategy or the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework of the Convention on Biological Diversity, set ambitious new targets (Báldi et al., 2023). ...
... Evidence shows that biodiversity is rapidly declining worldwide, suggesting previous policies were inefficient in tackling the process (Tryjanowski et al., 2011, Díaz et al., 2019, Rounsevell et al., 2020, Báldi et al., 2023. However, new policies, like the EU's Green Deal and Biodiversity Strategy or the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework of the Convention on Biological Diversity, set ambitious new targets (Báldi et al., 2023). All these policies highlight the need for robust monitoring and assessment programs to provide reliable and meaningful data for planning and evaluation. ...
As the world is struggling to halt the rapid decline of biodiversity, the assessment and mapping of ecosystem condition is getting ever increasing attention. Croplands are artificial ecosystems, but as they occupy a large portion of land, they significantly influence biodiversity. Yet, there is a knowledge gap about their suitability to support and maintain wildlife on a national scale. Large-scale condition mapping is meant to address this gap; the good condition of croplands includes their ability to support biodiversity. However, the lack of suitable databases is often a challenge when creating such maps. As there is a strong causal relation between pressures on the ecosystem and its condition, pressure indicators can be used as proxies to approximate condition when more direct indicators are lacking. The validation of condition maps based on pressure proxies is a key but challenging step. In this study, we tested a previously designed pressure-based cropland condition map for Hungary using bird census data. Besides validating the composite condition indicator, we also tested some key elements of the mapping process, such as the choice of variables and thresholds. Using multiple comparisons of means by Tukey's contrast and Random Forest modelling, we examined the relationship of (1) the continuous pressure-based cropland condition variables, (2) their rescaled, ordinal version (called sub-indicators), and (3) the composite cropland condition indicator (sum of the sub-indicators) with a biodiversity measure, the standardised relative richness of characteristic farmland bird species (rRRCS). To get a picture of the spatial patterns of the examined relationships across Hungary, individual Random Forest models were constructed for all the spatial units of the bird census database, using focal analysis with a 30 km radius moving window. We found significant differences in the mean rRRCS for nearly all sub-indicator categories, signifying that the literature-derived thresholds were mostly sound. Categories with higher (better) condition scores had higher mean rRRCS; the differences are significant in the mid-range but not in the extreme categories, indicating a need for a meaningful simplification of the categories. The goodness-of-fit (R 2) of the Random Forest models was found to be high, but it is spatially heterogeneous (ranged from 0.69 to 0.89, with a median value of 0.81), similarly to the variable importance. The proportion of semi-natural areas proved to be the most important condition variable. The proportion of maize and alfalfa were more important than parcel size. Our results show that condition maps based on pressure proxies can reflect patterns of biodiversity surprisingly well. They also highlight the spatial context dependence of the uncertainty of condition maps.
... Beyond diversity protection per se, the maintenance of ecosystem functioning also requires a diversity of habitats on the landscape. Such knowledge will be valuable input for the implementation of the EU's Nature Restoration Law by member states when agricultural landscapes and pollinators are targeted, and more broadly to the transformation of agriculture (Báldi et al. 2023). Note, however, that due to large yearly variations in arthropod abundance, and the diversity of farm systems across Europe, these results need to be validated locally before applying to the design of local or regional multifunctional landscapes. ...
Semi‐natural grasslands and their biodiversity decline rapidly, although they are key elements of agricultural landscapes. Therefore, there is a need for the re‐establishment of semi‐natural grasslands in intensively managed farmlands (e.g., via sowing wildflower seeds). Our knowledge, however, is limited on how different arthropod groups may respond to such newly established wildflower fields. This knowledge gap is especially relevant for the Pannonian biogeographical region, and more generally for Central Europe, where there is little to no evidence so far. We aimed to compare three different habitats (i.e., sown wildflower fields (WFF), semi‐natural road verges and adjacent crop fields) in terms of their species and individual numbers and assemblage compositions to reveal differences between primary producers (plants), pollinators (bees and hoverflies) and predators (spiders). We selected eight landscapes in Central Hungary within conventionally managed crop areas. We analysed species and individual numbers by generalised linear mixed models (GLMM) and the assemblage composition with non‐metric multidimensional scaling for each taxon in the three habitats. Crop, road verge and WFF habitats had distinct assemblages for each studied group, indicating clear separation among habitats. There are, however, contrasting patterns in the diversity measures of the studied groups. Crop fields are the poorest in both species and individual numbers, road verges harboured the highest abundance of spiders, while WFF had the most bees and plants. No clear pattern for hoverflies emerged. Our results suggest that the studied habitats do not harbour all groups in equal share. We propose that the design of future restorations in Central European farmlands should target a diversity of habitat types needed to support a wide range of functional groups.
The article explores social, environmental and economic sustainability of agriculture related to the well-being of rural areas. The transition to resource-saving technologies and renewable energy sources such as solar, wind and biogas energy will reduce dependence on fossil fuels and reduce the negative impact on the environment. In the article the authors analyse the problems and prospects for the development of the agricultural industry. The paper also explores the key directions of rural development. At the same time, examples of specific technologies and robots that solve important problems to minimise the negative impact on the environment are presented.
Recent studies have estimated the potential yield impacts of pesticide reductions in the European Union. While these estimates guide policy design, they are often based on worst-case assumptions and rarely account for positive ecological feedbacks that would contribute to sustainable crop yields in the long term.
Animal pollination supports the production of a wide range of food crops fundamental to maintaining diverse and nutritionally balanced diets. Here, we present a global meta-analysis quantifying the contribution of pollination to multiple facets of crop quality, including both organoleptic and nutritional traits. In fruits and vegetables, pollinators strongly improve several commercially important attributes related to appearance and shelf life, whereas they have smaller effects on nutritional value. Pollination does not increase quality in stimulant crops, nuts, and spices. We report weak signals of a pollination deficit for organoleptic traits, which might indicate a potential service decline across agricultural landscapes. However, the deficit is small and non-significant at the α = 0.05 level, suggesting that pollen deposition from wild and/or managed pollinators is sufficient to maximise quality in most cases. As producing commercially suboptimal fruits can have multiple negative economic and environmental consequences, safeguarding pollination services is important to maintain food security.
The new IPBES work programme “assessment of transformative change” aims to identify factors in human society—behavioural, social, cultural dimensions, among others—that may be leveraged to bring about transformative change. In this context and based on its scientific recommendations, the third French National Strategy for Biodiversity for 2030 (SNB3), published in 2022, aims to contribute to the implementation of France’s international commitments under the Convention on Biological Diversity and the EU’s Biodiversity Strategy for 2030. We carried out a critical assessment of the capacity of the first version of SNB3 to initiate transformative change. Firstly, we describe a two-step assessment methodology for determining the leverage potential of the strategy’s measures, based on a robust and replicable independent scientific audit and a multi-criteria analysis. Secondly, we present the main results of the assessment using the SNB3 as a case example. We confirm the scientific and practical relevance of this type of exercise for policy makers, for establishing strategies that are part of a transition process allowing for real transformative change in society. By analysing the measures and ranking them from most to least efficient, this study reveals the strengths and weaknesses of the strategy by anticipating what should have and may not have an impact, while highlighting what needs to be improved as a priority.
Declines in European bird populations are reported for decades but the direct effect of major anthropogenic pressures on such declines remains unquantified. Causal relationships between pressures and bird population responses are difficult to identify as pressures interact at different spatial scales and responses vary among species. Here, we uncover direct relationships between population time-series of 170 common bird species, monitored at more than 20,000 sites in 28 European countries, over 37 y, and four widespread anthropogenic pressures: agricultural intensification, change in forest cover, urbanisation and temperature change over the last decades. We quantify the influence of each pressure on population time-series and its importance relative to other pressures, and we identify traits of most affected species. We find that agricultural intensification, in particular pesticides and fertiliser use, is the main pressure for most bird population declines, especially for invertebrate feeders. Responses to changes in forest cover, urbanisation and temperature are more species-specific. Specifically, forest cover is associated with a positive effect and growing urbanisation with a negative effect on population dynamics, while temperature change has an effect on the dynamics of a large number of bird populations, the magnitude and direction of which depend on species' thermal preferences. Our results not only confirm the pervasive and strong effects of anthropogenic pressures on common breeding birds, but quantify the relative strength of these effects stressing the urgent need for transformative changes in the way of inhabiting the world in European countries, if bird populations shall have a chance of recovering.
CONTEXT: Agricultural intensification contributes to global food security and well-being by supplying the food demand of a growing human population. However, ongoing land-use change and intensification seriously affect the abundance, diversity and distribution of species, besides many other impacts, thereby threatening the functioning of ecosystems worldwide. Despite the accumulating evidence that the current agricultural model is unsustainable, we are far from understanding the consequences of functional diversity loss for functioning and
ecosystem service supply and the potential long-term threats to food security and human well-being.
OBJECTIVE: In this review, we propose a conceptual framework to understand the relationships between functional diversity and human well-being that also considers agroecosystem health. To this end, we identify the most commonly assumed relationships linking functional diversity to regulating and provisioning agroecosystem services and their importance for human well-being, emphasising the most serious knowledge gaps in the individual pathways of the conceptual framework.
METHODS: A consortium formed by an international panel of experts from different disciplines including functional diversity, ecosystem services and human health compiled 275 articles. Members of the consortium proposed literature to exemplify each specific aspect of the conceptual framework in the text, in accordance with
his/her field of expertise. The guideline for all experts was to focus mostly in current literature (38% of the references are from the last 5 years and 66% from the last decade), with special interest in reviews and synthesis articles (42% of the references), as well as meta-analyses and global studies (10% of the references).
RESULTS AND CONCLUSIONS: The factors that influence agroecosystem health are extremely complex, involving both services and disservices related to land-use management and environmental conditions. The global human population needs sustainable and resilient agroecosystems and a concerted effort is needed to fundamentally redesign agricultural practices to feed the growing human population without further jeopardising the quality of life for future generations. We highlight the potential effects of land-use change and ecological intensification on
the functional diversity of plant and animal communities, and the resulting consequences for ecosystem services and ultimately human health.
SIGNIFICANCE: The resulting conceptual model is developed for researchers as well as policy makers highlighting the need for a holistic approach to understand diversity impacts on human well-being. Finally, we document a major knowledge gap due to the lack of any studies focusing on the full pathway from diversity to
human well-being.
In Europe, the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) encouraged the specialisation of agriculture and forestry systems by supporting schemes that promoted productivity, despite the socio-ecological changes' detrimental effects on ecosystem services and biodiversity. In the case of mountain viticulture of southern Europe, the adoption of intensive management techniques triggered noticeable changes in farming systems, namely the removal of traditional stonewalls and semi-natural vegetation, partially compensated by eco schemes and agri-environment-climate measures. By combining fieldwork information with spatio-temporal modelling techniques, a novel hybrid framework is explained and implemented to predict the population trends of a critically endangered bird species in Portugal, the Black Wheatear (Oenanthe leucura), to the individual and/or combined effects of the removal of traditional stonewall terraced vineyards and the implementation of cover crops. The results obtained demonstrate the relevance of stonewall terraced vineyards (and the negative effects of their removal) for the conservation of Black Wheatear, namely during the breeding season when holes and crevices are used for nesting. Conversely, and in accordance with our simulations, the increase in the area occupied by vineyards with cover crops seems particularly detrimental for the species, by decreasing the quality of the feeding grounds. As cover crops, and possibly other eco schemes and agri-environment-climate measures, might not be the panacea for halting biodiversity loss in mountain viticulture, adaptation of measures to species' ecological requirements is urgent for a successful EU biodiversity strategy for 2030.
Consulting the best available evidence is key to successful conservation decision-making. While much scientific evidence on conservation continues to be published in non-English languages, a poor understanding of how non-English-language science contributes to conservation decision-making is causing global assessments and studies to practically ignore non-English-language literature. By investigating the use of scientific literature in biodiversity assessment reports across 37 countries/territories, we have uncovered the established role of non-English-language literature as a major source of information locally. On average, non-English-language literature constituted 65% of the references cited, and these were recognized as relevant knowledge sources by 75% of report authors. This means that by ignoring non-English-language science, international assessments may overlook important information on local and/or regional biodiversity. Furthermore, a quarter of the authors acknowledged the struggles of understanding English-language literature. This points to the need to aid the use of English-language literature in domestic decision-making, for example, by providing non-English-language abstracts or improving and/or implementing machine translation. (This abstract is also avaialble in 21 other languages in Supplementary Data 4).
Agriculture is the largest single source of environmental degradation, responsible for over 30% of global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, 70% of freshwater use and 80% of land conversion: it is the single largest driver of biodiversity loss (Foley JA, Science 309:570–574, 2005, Nature 478:337–342, 2011; IPBES. Global assessment report on biodiversity and ecosystem services of the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services. IPBES Secretariat, Bonn, 2019; Willett W et al. The Lancet 393:447–492, 2019). Agriculture also underpins poor human health, contributing to 11 million premature deaths annually. While too many still struggle from acute hunger, a growing number of individuals, including in low to middle-income countries (LMICs), struggle to access healthy foods. Greater consideration for, and integration of, biodiversity in agriculture is a key solution space for improving health, eliminating hunger and achieving nature-positive development objectives.
This rapid evidence review documents the best available evidence of agriculture’s relationships with biodiversity, drawing on the contributions of leading biodiversity experts, and recommends actions that can be taken to move towards more biodiversity/nature-positive production through the delivery of integrated agricultural solutions for climate, biodiversity, nutrition and livelihoods. The analysis, which takes a whole-of-food-system approach, brings together a large body of evidence. It accounts for aspects not typically captured in a stand-alone primary piece of research and indicates where there are critical gaps.
The European Union's Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) has not halted farmland biodiversity loss. The CAP post‐2023 has a new ‘‘Green Architecture,’’ including the new ‘‘Eco‐scheme’’ instrument. How can this new Green Architecture help tackle the biodiversity crisis? Through 13 workshops and an online survey, over 300 experts from 23 European Member States addressed this question.
From experts’ contributions, key principles for success include preserving and restoring (semi)natural elements and extensive grasslands; improving spatial planning and landscape‐scale implementation, including through collective actions; implementing result‐based approaches; and improved knowledge exchange. To maximize the effectiveness of Eco‐scheme for biodiversity, experts highlighted the need to prioritize evidence‐based actions, allocate a sufficient budget for biodiversity, and incentivize management improvements through higher payment levels. Additionally, stronger coherence is needed among CAP instruments.
For effective CAP implementation, the European Commission and the Member States should expand investments in biodiversity monitoring, knowledge transfer, and capacity‐building within relevant institutions. The remaining risks in the CAP's ability to reverse the loss of farmland biodiversity still require better design, closer monitoring, greater transparency, and better engagement with farmers. Additionally, greater involvement of scientists is needed to guide the CAP toward restoring farmland biodiversity while accounting for synergies and trade‐offs with other objectives.
Taxonomic and aesthetic biases permeate biodiversity conservation. We used the LIFE program-the European Union's funding scheme for the environment-to explore the economic dimension of biases in species-and habitat-level conservation. Between 1992 and 2020, animal species received three times more funding than plants. Within plants, species at northern latitudes, with broader ranges, and with blue/purple flowers received more funds regardless of their extinction risk. Conversely, species online popularity was only weakly positively associated with conservation expenditure. At the habitat-level, we found no relationship between expenditure and conservation status of the habitat. Our results can inform ways forward to achieve conservation goals that are comprehensive, sustainable, and cost-effective.
An ecosystem is healthy if it is active, maintains its organization and autonomy over time, and is resilient to stress. Healthy ecosystems provide human well‐being via ecosystem services, which are produced in interaction with human, social and built capital. These services are affected by different ecosystem stewardship schemes. Therefore, society should be aiming for ecosystem health stewardship at all levels to maintain and improve ecosystem services. We review the relationship between ecosystem health and ecosystem services, based on a logic chain framework starting with (1) a development or conservation policy, (2) a management decision or origin of the driver of change, (3) the driver of change itself, (4) the change in ecosystem health and (5) the change in the provision of ecosystem services and (6) the change in their value to humans. We review two case studies to demonstrate the application of this framework. We analysed 6,131 records from the Ecosystem Services Valuation Database (ESVD) and found that in approximately 58% of the records data on ecosystem health was lacking. Finally, we describe how the United Nations’ System of Environmental‐Economic Accounting (SEEA) incorporates ecosystem health as part of efforts to account for natural capital appreciation or depreciation at the national level. We also provide recommendations for improving this system.
In this report, we present the analysis of the different available biodiversity data streams at the EU and national level, both baseline biodiversity data and monitoring data. We assess how these biodiversity data inform and trigger policy action and identify the related challenges the different European countries and relevant EU agencies face and the solutions to overcome them. To do this, we consulted with more than 350 expert stakeholders from policy, research and practice. The assessment identified a fragmented biodiversity data landscape that cannot currently easily answer all relevant policy questions. Quantity and quality of biodiversity baseline datasets differ for the different countries, ranging from non-existent biodiversity monitoring due to capacity issues, to regular monitoring of ecosystem processes and state. By engaging stakeholders and experts in both member states and non-member states and from several EU bodies, we identified key challenges and ways to address these with targeted solutions towards building a joint European Biodiversity Monitoring Network. Solutions include focussing on cooperation and coordination, enhanced data standardisation and sharing, as well as the use of models and new technologies. These solutions can however only be realised with dedicated funding and capacity building, in coordination with all stakeholders in partnership.
In Europe, Natura 2000 sites should protect threatened target species and networks of habitats. The management of Natura 2000 grasslands is often financed by subsidized grazing as part of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP). We studied the extent of CAP grazing for Natura 2000 management and how this affects a butterfly target species (the marsh fritillary) and floral resources. Based on extensive capture‐mark‐release studies from 2 years in >550 ha grid cells in a 225 km² landscape in Sweden that includes 15 Natura 2000 sites, we compared marsh fritillary occurrence probabilities and population densities in ungrazed and CAP‐grazed habitats. Moreover, we analyzed how nectar resources and orchids were affected by CAP grazing based on plants records from 2347 sample plots. We estimated the proportion of butterfly habitats that were CAP‐grazed within and outside Natura 2000 sites. In total, 10 453 and 4417 butterflies were marked in 2017 and 2019, respectively. The grid cell occurrence probability was 1.8 times higher and the population density was 2.3 times higher in ungrazed compared with CAP‐grazed habitats in 2017, and the corresponding numbers for 2019 were 10 and 5.3 times higher, respectively. The number of flowering plants were on average 6.9 times higher and the density of orchids was 12.3 times higher in ungrazed habitats. Roughly, 30% (130 ha) of the marsh fritillary habitat was CAP grazed, and 97% of this grazing occurred within protected areas, of which 111 ha was situated within Natura 2000 area where the marsh fritillary is the target species. Alarmingly, we show that intense yearly CAP grazing, which is the dominant management strategy in all Natura 2000 sites, has devastating consequences for the target species and other aspects of biodiversity. Less intense management, which would benefit biodiversity, requires changes in the CAP, to allow more flexible payments for habitat management objectives and conservation of target species.
One of the main goals of the EU Biodiversity Strategy for 2030 is to avoid further loss of biodiversity and to restore ecosystems. These efforts can be facilitated by compiling the main research topics related to conservation biology to provide new evidence for the most urgent knowledge gaps, and publicise it to researchers, research funders and policy makers. We used the possible future statements from the Hungarian Environmental Foresight Report for 2050 which identified region-specific problems. To highlight likely future environmental and conservation questions, in this study we asked researchers from the fields of ecology and conservation to define research questions addressing these future statements in line with international research trends and challenges. The study resulted in fourteen priority research topics, split into seven clusters relevant to biological conservation that should be targeted by stakeholders, primarily policy makers and funders to focus research capacity to these topics. The main overarching themes identified here include a wide range of approaches and solutions such as innovative technologies, involvement of local stakeholders and citizen scientists, legislation, and issues related to human health. These indicate that solutions to conservation challenges require a multidisciplinary approach in design and a multi-actor approach in implementation. Although the identified research priorities were listed for Hungary, they are in line with European and global biodiversity strategies, and can be tailored to suit other Central and Eastern European countries as well. We believe that our prioritisation can help science–policy discussion, and will eventually contribute to healthy and well-functioning ecosystems.
Spatial patterns of biodiversity are inextricably linked to their collection methods, yet no synthesis of bias patterns or their consequences exists. As such, views of organismal distribution and the ecosystems they make up may be incorrect, undermining countless ecological and evolutionary studies. Using 742 million records of 374 900 species, we explore the global patterns and impacts of biases related to taxonomy, accessibility, ecotype and data type across terrestrial and marine systems. Pervasive sampling and observation biases exist across animals, with only 6.74% of the globe sampled, and disproportionately poor tropical sampling. High elevations and deep seas are particularly unknown. Over 50% of records in most groups account for under 2% of species and citizen‐science only exacerbates biases. Additional data will be needed to overcome many of these biases, but we must increasingly value data publication to bridge this gap and better represent species' distributions from more distant and inaccessible areas, and provide the necessary basis for conservation and management.
This article analyzes the environmental opportunities and limitations of digitalization
in the agricultural sector by applying qualitative governance analysis. Agriculture is recognized as a key application area for digital technologies, including artificial intelligence. This is not least because it faces major sustainability challenges, especially with regard to meeting the climate and biodiversity targets set out in the Paris Agreement and the Convention on Biological Diversity, as well as the water-related objectives of EU environmental legislation. Based on an overview of the possible applications of digital technologies in agriculture, the article offers a status quo analysis of legal acts with relevance to digitalization in the EU agricultural sector. It is found that a reliable legal
framework with regard to product liability and product safety, as well as data privacy, data access, and data security is important in this context. In addition, the European Common Agricultural Policy, as the most important funding instrument for digital innovations in the agricultural sector, should be designed in such a way that it links digitalization-related objectives more closely with sustainability targets. So far, the existing EU governance does not fully exploit the potentials of digitalization for environmental protection, and sight is lost of possible negative side effects such as rebound and shifting effects. Therefore, the article also offers proposals for the optimization of EU governance.
Abstract To tackle the current global environmental crisis, operational science‐policy interfaces are needed. The Intergovernmental Science‐policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) provides governments with policy advice via its assessment reports. To expand the evidence‐base and to support the uptake of IPBES products, participation needs to be balanced across the globe. We found imbalance in authors’ distribution at both the UN regional and country level. It is more pronounced for IPBES‐related scientific papers than for the IPBES global assessment. The more detached from politics the decision of getting involved is, the more imbalanced the representation of the regions becomes. To improve the IPBES’ geographical balance, a strategy to increase the number of active member states is called for. We argued that without explicit efforts to reach the balance—for example, providing an attractive research environment for excellent researchers in their home country, improving cooperation among countries across the UN regions, and granting publication opportunity for all authors—the idea of geographic equality diminishes.
Lower diversity of plant and animal farmland species are usually reported where cropland has been aggregated into larger fields, which raises prospects of curbing declines in European farmland biodiversity and associated ecosystem services by halting trends to field size increases associated to agricultural intensification, without having to set aside arable land for conservation. Here, we consider the factors underlying trade‐offs between farmer income and biodiversity as mediated by field size at local and landscape scales, and how these trade‐offs may be overcome. Field sizes are still increasing, facilitated by increasing farm sizes and land consolidation. Decreases in working time and fuel expenses when fields are larger, uptake of larger machinery and subsidies favoring larger farms provide incentives to manage land in larger units, putting farmland biodiversity further at risk. Yet, field size‐mediated ecological–economic trade‐offs are largely ignored in policy and research. We recommend internalizing the ecological effects of changes in landscape‐scale field size into land consolidation scheme design, ensuring that EU Common Agricultural Policy post‐2020 rewards farmers that maintain and recreate fine‐grained landscapes where these are essential for farmland biodiversity targets, and reducing economic–ecological trade‐offs by stimulating agricultural research and innovation for economically efficient yet biodiversity‐friendly farming in fine‐grained landscapes.
Local biodiversity trends over time are likely to be decoupled from global trends, as local processes may compensate or counteract global change. We analyze 161 long-term biological time series (15–91 years) collected across Europe, using a comprehensive dataset comprising ~6,200 marine, freshwater and terrestrial taxa. We test whether (i) local long-term biodiversity trends are consistent among biogeoregions, realms and taxonomic groups, and (ii) changes in biodiversity correlate with regional climate and local conditions. Our results reveal that local trends of abundance, richness and diversity differ among biogeoregions, realms and taxonomic groups, demonstrating that biodiversity changes at local scale are often complex and cannot be easily generalized. However, we find increases in richness and abundance with increasing temperature and naturalness as well as a clear spatial pattern in changes in community composition (i.e. temporal taxonomic turnover) in most biogeoregions of Northern and Eastern Europe. The global biodiversity decline might conceal complex local and group-specific trends. Here the authors report a quantitative synthesis of longterm biodiversity trends across Europe, showing how, despite overall increase in biodiversity metric and stability in abundance, trends differ between regions, ecosystem types, and taxa.
Wetlands are fragile, dynamic systems, transient at larger temporal scales and strongly affected by long-term human activities. Sustaining at least some aspects of human management, particularly traditional grazing, would be especially important as a way of maintaining the “necessary” disturbances for many endangered species. Traditional ecological knowledge represents an important source of information for erstwhile management practices. Our objective was to review historical traditional knowledge on wetland grazing and the resulting vegetation response in order to assess their relevance to biodiversity conservation.
We studied the Pannonian biogeographic region and its neighborhood in Central Europe and searched ethnographic, local historical, early botanical, and agrarian sources for historical traditional knowledge in online databases and books. The findings were analyzed and interpreted by scientist, nature conservationist and traditional knowledge holder (herder) co-authors alike.
Among the historical sources reviewed, we found 420 records on traditional wetland grazing, mainly from the period 1720–1970. Data showed that wetlands in the region served as basic grazing areas, particularly for cattle and pigs. We found more than 500 mentions of habitat categories and 383 mentions of plants consumed by livestock. The most important reasons for keeping livestock on wetlands were grazing, stock wintering, and surviving forage gap periods in early spring or mid-late summer. Besides grazing, other commonly mentioned effects on vegetation were trampling and uprooting. The important outcomes were vegetation becoming patchy and remaining low in height, tall-growing dominant species being suppressed, litter being removed, and microhabitats being created, such as open surfaces of mud and water.
These historical sources lay firm foundations for developing innovative nature conservation management methods. Traditional herders still holding wetland management knowledge could contribute to this process when done in a participatory way, fostering knowledge co-production.
Weedy plants pose a major threat to food security, biodiversity, ecosystem services and consequently to human health and wellbeing. However, many currently used weed management approaches are increasingly unsustainable. To address this knowledge and practice gap, in June 2014, 35 weed and invasion ecologists, weed scientists, evolutionary biologists and social scientists convened a workshop to explore current and future perspectives and approaches in weed ecology and management. A horizon scanning exercise ranked a list of 124 pre-submitted questions to identify a priority list of 30 questions. These questions are discussed under seven themed headings that represent areas for renewed and emerging focus for the disciplines of weed research and practice. The themed areas considered the need for transdisciplinarity, increased adoption of integrated weed management and agroecological approaches, better understanding of weed evolution, climate change, weed invasiveness and finally, disciplinary challenges for weed science. Almost all the challenges identified rested on the need for continued efforts to diversify and integrate agroecological, socioeconomic and technological approaches in weed management. These challenges are not newly conceived, though their continued prominence as research priorities highlights an ongoing intransigence that must be addressed through a more system-oriented and transdisciplinary research agenda that seeks an embedded integration of public and private research approaches. This horizon scanning exercise thus set out the building blocks needed for future weed management research and practice; however, the challenge ahead is to identify effective ways in which sufficient research and implementation efforts can be directed towards these needs.
Agricultural intensification drives biodiversity loss and shapes farmers’ profit, but the role of legacy effects and detailed quantification of ecological–economic trade-offs are largely unknown. In Europe during the 1950s, the Eastern communist bloc switched to large-scale farming by forced collectivization of small farms, while the West kept small-scale private farming. Here we show that large-scale agriculture in East Germany reduced biodiversity, which has been maintained in West Germany due to > 70% longer field edges than those in the East. In contrast, profit per farmland area in the East was 50% higher than that in the West, despite similar yield levels. In both regions, switching from conventional to organic farming increased biodiversity and halved yield levels, but doubled farmers’ profits. In conclusion, European Union policy should acknowledge the surprisingly
high biodiversity benefits of small-scale agriculture, which are on a par with conversion to organic agriculture.
A review is made of the current state of agriculture, emphasising issues of soil erosion and dependence on fossil fuels, in regard to achieving food security for a relentlessly enlarging global population. Soil has been described as “the fragile, living skin of the Earth”, and yet both its aliveness and fragility have all too often been ignored in the expansion of agriculture across the face of the globe. Since it is a pivotal component in a global nexus of soil-water-air-energy, how we treat the soil can impact massively on climate change – with either beneficial or detrimental consequences, depending on whether the soil is preserved or degraded. Regenerative agriculture has at its core the intention to improve the health of soil or to restore highly degraded soil, which symbiotically enhances the quality of water, vegetation and land-productivity. By using methods of regenerative agriculture, it is possible not only to increase the amount of soil organic carbon (SOC) in existing soils, but to build new soil. This has the effect of drawing down carbon from the atmosphere, while simultaneously improving soil structure and soil health, soil fertility and crop yields, water retention and aquifer recharge – thus ameliorating both flooding and drought, and also the erosion of further soil, since runoff is reduced. Since food production on a more local scale is found to preserve the soil and its quality, urban food production should be seen as a significant potential contributor to regenerative agriculture in the future, so long as the methods employed are themselves ‘regenerative’. If localisation is to become a dominant strategy for dealing with a vastly reduced use of fossil fuels, and preserving soil quality – with increased food production in towns and cities – it will be necessary to incorporate integrated (‘systems’) design approaches such as permaculture and the circular economy (which minimise and repurpose ‘waste’) within the existing urban infrastructure. In addition to growing food in urban space, such actions as draught-proofing and thermally insulating existing building stock, and living/ working on a more local scale, would serve well to cut our overall energy consumption. In order to curb our use of fossil fuels, methods for reducing overall energy use must be considered at least equally important to expanding low-carbon energy production. In synopsis, it is clear that only by moving from the current linear, ‘take, make, dispose (waste-creation)’ model for resource-consumption, to the systemic, circular alternative of ‘reduce, reuse, recycle, regenerate’, are we likely to meet demands for future generations.
The prevailing discourse on the future of agriculture is dominated by an imbalanced narrative that calls for food production to increase dramatically—potentially doubling by 2050—without specifying commensurate environmental goals. We aim to rebalance this narrative by laying out quantitative and compelling midcentury targets for both production and the environment. Our analysis shows that an increase of approximately 25%–70% above current production levels may be sufficient to meet 2050 crop demand. At the same time, nutrient losses and greenhouse gas emissions from agriculture must drop dramatically to restore and maintain ecosystem functioning. Specifying quantitative targets will clarify the scope of the challenges that agriculture must face in the coming decades, focus research and policy on achieving specific outcomes, and ensure that sustainable intensification efforts lead to measurable environmental improvements. We propose new directions for research and policy to help meet both sustainability and production goals.
Background. Pollinators, which provide the agriculturally and ecologically essential service of pollination, are under threat at a global scale. Habitat loss and homogenisation, pesticides, parasites and pathogens, invasive species, and climate change have been identified as past and current threats to pollinators. Actions to mitigate these threats, e.g., agri-environment schemes and pesticide-use moratoriums, exist, but have largely been applied post-hoc. However, future sustainability of pollinators and the service they provide requires anticipation of potential threats and opportunities before they occur, enabling timely implementation of policy and practice to prevent, rather than mitigate, further pollinator declines. Methods. Using a horizon scanning approach we identified issues that are likely to impact pollinators, either positively or negatively, over the coming three decades. Results. Our analysis highlights six high priority, and nine secondary issues. High priorities are: (1) corporate control of global agriculture, (2) novel systemic pesticides, (3) novel RNA viruses, (4) the development of new managed pollinators, (5) more frequent heatwaves and drought under climate change, and (6) the potential positive impact of reduced chemical use on pollinators in non-agricultural settings. Discussion. While current pollinator management approaches are largely driven by mitigating past impacts, we present opportunities for pre-emptive practice, legislation, and policy to sustainably manage pollinators for future generations.
Pollinators, which provide the agriculturally and ecologically essential
service of pollination, are under threat at a global scale. Habitat loss and homogenisation,
pesticides, parasites and pathogens, invasive species, and climate change have been
identified as past and current threats to pollinators. Actions to mitigate these threats,
e.g., agri-environment schemes and pesticide-use moratoriums, exist, but have largely
been applied post-hoc. However, future sustainability of pollinators and the service they
provide requires anticipation of potential threats and opportunities before they occur,
enabling timely implementation of policy and practice to prevent, rather than mitigate,
further pollinator declines.
Agroecology involves various approaches to solve actual challenges of agricultural production. Though agroecology initially dealt primarily with crop production and protection aspects, in recent decades new dimensions such as environmental, social, economic, ethical and development issues are becoming relevant. Today, the term 'agroecology' means either a scientific discipline, agricultural practice, or political or social movement. Here we study the different meanings of agroecology. For that we analyse the historical development of agroecology. We present examples from USA, Brazil, Germany, and France. We study and discuss the evolution of different meanings agroecology. The use of the term agroecology can be traced back to the 1930s. Until the 1960s agroecology referred only as a purely scientific discipline. Then, different branches of agroecology developed. Following environmental movements in the 1960s that went against industrial agriculture, agroecology evolved and fostered agroecological movements in the 1990s. Agroecology as an agricultural practice emerged in the 1980s, and was often intertwined with movements. Further, the scales and dimensions of agroecological investigations changed over the past 80 years from the plot and field scales to the farm and agroecosystem scales. Actually three approaches persist: ( 1) investigations at plot and field scales, ( 2) investigations at the agroecosystem and farm scales, and ( 3) investigations covering the whole food system. These different approaches of agroecological science can be explained by the history of nations. In France, agroecology was mainly understood as a farming practice and to certain extent as a movement, whereas the corresponding scientific discipline was agronomy. In Germany, agroecology has a long tradition as a scientific discipline. In the USA and in Brazil all three interpretations of agroecology occur, albeit with a predominance of agroecology as a science in the USA and a stronger emphasis on movement and agricultural practice in Brazil. These varied meanings of the term agroecology cause confusion among scientists and the public, and we recommend that those who publish using this term be explicit in their interpretation.
High biocultural diversity is often found in landscapes where farming practices have preserved diverse habitats and many ‘traditional’ cultural features. We assessed what impacts conservation and agri-environmental regulations had and have on the maintenance of some elements in traditional hay meadow management in two such cultural landscapes (Gyimes—Romania; Őrség—Hungary). Data were gathered by interviews with local farmers and conservation scientists, discussed with farmers. We found that extensive farming was not given adequate weight and explicit function in the regulatory frameworks either in the landscape where traditional farming is still actively practiced, or where it has mostly vanished and/or was transformed. Of the 25 traditional management elements documented in Gyimes, regulations affected seven components directly, and one more indirectly. Four of these impacts were negative and four were positive. Of the 20 traditional management elements in Őrség, 11 elements were regulated, and five more were affected indirectly. Only two elements were affected positively. Our data show that for a more efficient support of traditional farming, more traditional elements must be encouraged, e.g. hayseed scattering, mowing with small machinery, manual cleaning of weeds and shrubs, manual hay gathering and extensive manuring. The role of increasing the spatial scale of regulations, considering the whole socio-ecological system and the need for region-specific regulations are discussed. We argue that in those landscapes where traditional small-scale farming is still actively practiced, decision-makers should understand local management practices and concepts first, instead of imposing requirements on farmers that are alien to the local landscape and society.
Oral histories as a baseline of landscape restoration – Co-management and watershed knowledge in Jukajoki River TERO MUSTONEN Mustonen, Tero (2013). Oral histories as a baseline of landscape restoration – Co-management and watershed knowledge in Jukajoki River. Fennia 191: 2, pp. 76–91. ISSN 1798-5617. This article explores local oral histories and selected communal written texts and their role in the severely damaged watershed of Jukajoki [and adjacent lake Jukajärvi watershed] located in Kontiolahti and Joensuu municipalities, North Karelia, Finland. All in all 35 narratives were collected between 2010 and 2012. Four narratives have been presented in this paper as an example of the materials. Empirical materials have been analysed by using a framework of both integrated ecosystem management and co-management. Three readings of the river Juka-joki and the adjacent watershed emerged from the materials – Sámi times, Savo-Karelian times and times of damages, or the industrial age of the river. Local knowledge, including optic histories, provided information about pre-industrial fisheries, fish ecology and behaviour and bird habitats. Lastly, special oral histories of keepers of the local tradition provided narratives which are consistent with inquiries from other parts of Finland, non-Euclidian readings of time and space and hint at what the Indigenous scholars have proposed as an intimate interconnection between nature and human societies extending beyond notions of social-ecological systems. Empirical oral histories also conceptualize collab-orative governance with a formal role of local ecological knowledge as a future management option for the Jukajoki watershed. Watershed restoration and associated baseline information benefits greatly from the oral histories recorded with people who still remember pre-industrial and prewar ecosystems and their qualities.
Over half of the European landscape is under agricultural management and has been for millennia. Many species and ecosystems of conservation concern in Europe depend on agricultural management and are showing ongoing declines. Agri-environment schemes (AES) are designed partly to address this. They are a major source of nature conservation funding within the European Union (EU) and the highest conservation expenditure in Europe. We reviewed the structure of current AES across Europe. Since a 2003 review questioned the overall effectiveness of AES for biodiversity, there has been a plethora of case studies and meta-analyses examining their effectiveness. Most syntheses demonstrate general increases in farmland biodiversity in response to AES, with the size of the effect depending on the structure and management of the surrounding landscape. This is important in the light of successive EU enlargement and ongoing reforms of AES. We examined the change in effect size over time by merging the data sets of 3 recent meta-analyses and found that schemes implemented after revision of the EU's agri-environmental programs in 2007 were not more effective than schemes implemented before revision. Furthermore, schemes aimed at areas out of production (such as field margins and hedgerows) are more effective at enhancing species richness than those aimed at productive areas (such as arable crops or grasslands). Outstanding research questions include whether AES enhance ecosystem services, whether they are more effective in agriculturally marginal areas than in intensively farmed areas, whether they are more or less cost-effective for farmland biodiversity than protected areas, and how much their effectiveness is influenced by farmer training and advice? The general lesson from the European experience is that AES can be effective for conserving wildlife on farmland, but they are expensive and need to be carefully designed and targeted.
Abandonment or change of traditional (pre-modern) management systems threaten semi-natural grasslands worldwide. Understanding existing traditional grassland management could greatly help to improve our ability to preserve biodiversity in traditionally managed farmlands. We studied the management of species-rich man-made grasslands (ca. 32–52 vascular plant species on 16 m2) and the related traditional ecological knowledge in Gyimes (Romania), where more than 40,000 hectares of meadows and pastures are still managed traditionally. Methods of ecological anthropology e.g. participatory field work, semi-structured interviews (33 interviewees), and free listings were used. Csángós (people living in these valleys of the Carpathians) distinguish hay meadows based on manuring: nearby and distant hay meadows. Pastures are classified into pastures near settlements, mountain pastures, and pastures for sheep. Traditional management of meadows includes mowing, cleaning, mowing-date rotation of tracts, amelioration with hayseed and Onobrychis viciifolia seeds, manuring, manual thinning of unwanted plants, suppression of mosses, and small-scale drainage. We argue that the mowing-date rotation system found in Gyimes is a unique land-use practice that could greatly enhance biodiversity together with hayseed scattering. Treatment of pastures is more simple: sectional cleaning of shrubs/trees, and burning and corralling against Nardus. The goal of Csángós is not to protect biodiversity, but to keep their grasslands in good condition for a long run, and thus ascertain the availability of hay in the needed quantity and quality. We argue that subsidy systems should encourage the maintenance of this and similar systems, support the still existing local traditional communities and also in protected areas management systems should build on the experiences of these small-scale traditional farmers.
The planetary boundaries framework defines a safe operating space for humanity based on the intrinsic biophysical processes
that regulate the stability of the Earth system. Here, we revise and update the planetary boundary framework, with a focus
on the underpinning biophysical science, based on targeted input from expert research communities and on more general scientific
advances over the past 5 years. Several of the boundaries now have a two-tier approach, reflecting the importance of cross-scale
interactions and the regional-level heterogeneity of the processes that underpin the boundaries. Two core boundaries—climate
change and biosphere integrity—have been identified, each of which has the potential on its own to drive the Earth system
into a new state should they be substantially and persistently transgressed.
The first public product of the Intergovernmental Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) is its Conceptual Framework. This conceptual and analytical tool, presented here in detail, will underpin all IPBES functions and provide structure and comparability to the syntheses that IPBES will produce at different spatial scales, on different themes, and in different regions. Salient innovative aspects of the IPBES Conceptual Framework are its transparent and participatory construction process and its explicit consideration of diverse scientific disciplines, stakeholders, and knowledge systems, including indigenous and local knowledge. Because the focus on co-construction of integrative knowledge is shared by an increasing number of initiatives worldwide, this framework should be useful beyond IPBES, for the wider research and knowledge-policy communities working on the links between nature and people, such as natural, social and engineering scientists, policy-makers at different levels, and decisionmakers in different sectors of society.
The increasing pace of climate change is an existential threat to farming continuity and biodiversity. Agricultural innovation is running too slowly but could be accelerated by a change in the agroecological narrative. A farmer-led agroecology prioritising farming continuity for biodiversity would speed up innovation and better serve science and society.
Governments are negotiating actions intended to halt biodiversity loss and put it on a path to recovery by 2050. Here, we show that bending the curve for biodiversity is possible, but only if actions are implemented urgently and in an integrated manner. Connecting these actions to biodiversity outcomes and tracking progress remain a challenge.
Effective interfaces of knowledge and policy are critical for food system transformation. Here, an expert group assembled to explore research needs towards a safe and just food system put forward principles to guide relations between society, science, knowledge, policy and politics.
The European Union is the forefront supra-national Institution leading worldwide the environmental and biodiversity conservation strategy evolution. However, European citizens appear as poorly aware of the core relative concepts and policies within the EU’s territory. This paper examines whether: (1) there are ‘imbalances’ in Europeans’ attitudes towards biodiversity between the Member States and more specifically between formal or informal country-groups (e.g. the Med 7 or the Nordic Council/Baltic Assembly); (2) the European Biodiversity Strategy is effective in achieving the goal of increasing people awareness and engagement as predicted in its own formally ratified resolutions; and, (3) information from Google Trends-based conservation culturomics techniques and public opinion Eurobarometer surveys is comparable and converges quantitatively. Large data sets of ca 40 nominal, ordinal, and count variables were analyzed using General and Generalized Linear Models to identify those which form a coherent and significant explanatory scheme. It is suggested that the communication of the European Biodiversity strategy should be re-oriented towards processes, risks, benefits, and costs to people to give a new breath to the incumbent conservation narrative.
The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) classifies protected areas into six categories, ranging from strict nature reserves to areas where multiple human uses are permitted. In the past, many researchers have questioned the effectiveness of multiple-use areas, fueling an unresolved debate regarding their conservation value. The literature so far has been inconclusive: although several studies have found that strictly protected areas are more effective, others have found the opposite, and yet others that the two types do not differ. To help resolve this debate, we reviewed the literature on protected areas and conducted our own analysis using > 19 000 terrestrial protected areas worldwide. We found that the differences between strictly protected areas and areas in which multiple human uses are permitted are often small and not statistically significant. Although the effectiveness of protected areas worldwide varies, other factors, besides their assigned IUCN category, are likely to be driving this pattern.
Traditional and Indigenous knowledge has successfully preserved and restored biodiversity across the globe. However, its recognition as being as equally valid as Western science as a way of knowing remains lacking. If we are to preserve global biodiversity and rewild key habitats, science and Indigenous knowledge must work in partnership while also being restitutive and rights based.
The European Union’s Common Agricultural Policy (CAP), being one of the strongest drivers of agricultural land-use practices, has a substantial impact on biodiversity and ecosystem services in the Member States. The initial focus of the CAP to increase and intensify agricultural production affected water and land qualities and contributed to the degradation of traditional agricultural landscapes, cultural identities, and erosion of typical farmland biodiversity. Recent CAP reforms have begun to consider biodiversity and ecosystem services, but still fall short of a thorough mainstreaming approach. The objectives of this paper are to point out main findings regarding (i) key shortcomings of the current CAP, and (ii) major opportunities to enhance the mainstreaming of biodiversity and ecosystem services within the CAP. The paper is based on insights generated in the sub-global assessment of the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) for Europe and Central Asia1. Our results illustrate the evolution of agricultural policy objectives and instruments applied in the CAP, and their effects on selected ecosystem services and biodiversity. We shed light on key shortcomings of existing policy and provide recommendations for further CAP reforms to achieve more effective biodiversity conservation and sustainable use of ecosystem services.
Semi-open oak woods and solitary oaks commonly dominate the wooded fabric (i.e. the ‘oakscape’) of European traditional rural agricultural landscapes based on
animal husbandry. However, modern land use systems fail to perpetuate oakscapes, posing a serious threat to biodiversity conservation and the associated diversity
of ecosystem services. Reconstructing the dynamics of oakscape remnants can provide valuable insights concerning the maintenance of oakscapes. We used the socio-
economic transitions at the European Union’s eastern border as a natural experiment to explore the drivers for successful oak recruitment in 27 selected units
representing 4 oakscape categories. Analyses of tree-ring data, historical maps, and orthophotos were used to reconstruct the oakscapes’ establishment trajectories in
relation to land use changes in the period 1790–2010. The oaks in cultural semi-open woods and wood-pastures differed substantially from those in closed canopy
forests by more stocky shape and faster early age DBH annual increase. We found two distinct recruitment patterns: (1) FAST – recruitment usually completed within
2–3 decades, attributed to an unconstrained succession of abandoned agricultural land, and (2) SLOW – recruitment extending over several or more decades. In
Ukraine, frequent illegal grass burning in marginal woods was the most successful mechanism perpetuating oak recruitment. Top-down policy encouraging spe-
cialized intensive farming, sustained yield forestry, and conservation efforts concentrated on the preservation of closed canopy forests compromise the future of
traditional agro-silvo-pastoral systems. Maintenance of traditional integrated agro-silvo-pastoral management sustaining oakscapes needs to combine local tradi-
tional knowledge and landscape stewardship.
With ongoing environmental degradation at local, regional, and global scales, people's accepted thresholds for environmental conditions are continually being lowered. In the absence of past information or experience with historical conditions, members of each new generation accept the situation in which they were raised as being normal. This psychological and sociological phenomenon is termed shifting baseline syndrome (SBS), which is increasingly recognized as one of the fundamental obstacles to addressing a wide range of today's global environmental issues. Yet our understanding of this phenomenon remains incomplete. We provide an overview of the nature and extent of SBS and propose a conceptual framework for understanding its causes, consequences, and implications. We suggest that there are several self‐reinforcing feedback loops that allow the consequences of SBS to further accelerate SBS through progressive environmental degradation. Such negative implications highlight the urgent need to dedicate considerable effort to preventing and ultimately reversing SBS.
As the world's population continues to grow, the demand for food, fodder, fibre and bioenergy will increase. In Europe, the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) has driven the intensification of agriculture, promoting the simplification and specialization of agroecosystems through the decline in landscape heterogeneity, the increased use of chemicals per unit area, and the abandonment of less fertile areas. In combination, these processes have eroded the quantity and quality of habitat for many plants and animals, and hence decreased biodiversity and the abundance of species across a hierarchy of trophic levels and spatial scales within Europe. This biodiversity loss has led to profound changes in the functioning of European agroecosystems over the last 50 years. Here, we synthesize the findings from a large-scale pan-European investigation of the combined effects of agricultural intensification on a range of agroecosystem services. These include (1) the persistence of high conservation value species; (2) the level of biological control of agricultural pests and (3) the functional diversity of a number of taxonomic groups, including birds, beetles and arable weeds. The study encompasses a gradient of geography-bioclimate and agricultural intensification that enables the large-scale measurement of ecological impacts of agricultural intensification across European agroecosystems. We provide an overview of the role of the CAP as a driver of agricultural intensification in the European Union, and we demonstrate compelling negative relationships between the application of pesticides and the various components of biodiversity studied on a pan-European scale.
A large proportion of European biodiversity today depends on habitat provided by low-intensity farming practices, yet this resource is declining as European agriculture intensifies. Within the European Union, particularly the central and eastern new member states have retained relatively large areas of species-rich farmland, but despite increased investment in nature conservation here in recent years, farmland biodiversity trends appear to be worsening. Although the high biodiversity value of Central and Eastern European farmland has long been reported, the amount of research in the international literature focused on farmland biodiversity in this region remains comparatively tiny, and measures within the EU Common Agricultural Policy are relatively poorly adapted to support it. In this opinion study, we argue that, 10 years after the accession of the first eastern EU new member states, the continued under-representation of the low-intensity farmland in Central and Eastern Europe in the international literature and EU policy is impeding the development of sound, evidence-based conservation interventions. The biodiversity benefits for Europe of existing low-intensity farmland, particularly in the central and eastern states, should be harnessed before they are lost. Instead of waiting for species-rich farmland to further decline, targeted research and monitoring to create locally appropriate conservation strategies for these habitats is needed now.