Landscape Features and Biodiversity
This Thematic Group provided an opportunity to bring Member State representatives and stakeholders together to discuss how to encourage improved diversity, coverage, connectivity and condition of landscape features within the farmed environment.
Context
Landscape features provide important habitats for pollinators, insects and other species, as well as providing a range of other ecosystem services. They also have long-standing historical and cultural roots within Europe’s agricultural landscapes. However, as agricultural use has intensified, many landscape features have disappeared from the farmed landscape or have been neglected and left unmanaged, leading to negative impacts on habitats for wild animals, pollinators, natural pest regulators, plant diversity and soil health.
Farmers have a major role to play in increasing biodiversity through the retention, management and creation of landscape features on agricultural land, and meeting the target for at least 10% of agricultural area to be under high-diversity landscape features by 2030 set out in the Biodiversity Strategy 2030. Increasing the share of agricultural land with high-diversity landscape features is also one of the indicators identified for agricultural ecosystems in the Nature Restoration Regulation.
This Thematic Group brought a range of stakeholders together to explore how the CAP could be used to encourage improved diversity, coverage, connectivity and condition of landscape features within the farmed environment.
Objectives
The objectives of this TG were to:
- Explore how landscape features may be protected, maintained, created and restored using a range of CAP interventions within different Member States;
- Identify ways in which farmers may be encouraged to see landscape features as adding value to their operations and overcome barriers/challenges to uptake; and
- Share experiences on how MS have supported landscape features’ retention, management and creation in the past and how better data and targeted support may lessen habitat fragmentation and increase biodiversity.
Activities
At the first TG meeting (13 October 2022, online), TG members shared good practices and promising approaches to support the maintenance, restoration and creation of landscape features, discussing how instruments available via CAP Strategic Plans (CSPs) could be used to best effect and what the key enablers and barriers were that need to be overcome. The outcomes of the TG meeting are highlighted in the event report.
These discussions were built upon in the second meeting (15 December 2022, online), where TG members identified key factors for successfully stimulating both Managing Authorities and land managers to increase engagement and take action to increase the coverage of landscape features in the EU to enhance biodiversity and deliver ecosystem services. The outcomes of the TG meeting are highlighted in the event report.
Key findings
A factsheet is available that summarises the findings and recommendations of the TG on how to design schemes using CAP interventions to encourage the management and creation of landscape features that benefit biodiversity, as well as delivering other environmental, climate and economic benefits.
Some of the highlights are:
- Landscape features can have significant benefits for the environment alongside those for biodiversity, such as reduced risk of soil erosion and floods, improved water infiltration, availability and carbon capture and protection of pollinators.
- The introduction of a 10% target for high diversity landscape features on all agricultural land in the EU in the Biodiversity Strategy 2030 (and the related target in the Nature Restoration Regulation) provides increased impetus for action on landscape features.
- The CSPs are an important source of support for land managers, enabling them to increase action to maintain, restore and create landscape features.
- Greater clarity is required for farmers on the definitions of landscape features, their obligations under conditionality, the payments available to them, and the distinction between ‘productive’ and ‘non-productive’ features.
- Supporting landscape features and monitoring improvements for their biodiversity quality depends on individual farmers and funding agencies knowing where these features are. Farm-scale mapping and inventories of different types of landscape features should be improved. Reducing administrative burden for farmers could be achieved by pre-populating the Land Parcel Information System (LPIS) with the location data of existing landscape features, allowing farmers to easily link them to their parcels or integrate new ones into the system.
- To improve landscape feature coverage and connectivity and to encourage peer-to-peer knowledge sharing and innovation, cooperation amongst local farmers should be encouraged and facilitated.
- Embedding specialist training and implementation support for farmers within and outside payment schemes is critical, not just on the management of landscape features but also on the long-term potential benefits for the farm (e.g. economic benefits such as reducing soil erosion, increasing pollinators, improving resilience to climate change and potential tourism benefits).
- It is important to reward not just the quantity of landscape features, but also their quality. This could be achieved through, for example, higher payments for more biodiverse landscape features, habitat connectivity across boundaries and landscape features in priority locations; and rewarding farmer motivation and management skills by offering results-based payments for improvements in structural and habitat diversity.
Learn more
Scroll down this page to find all the outputs of this Thematic Group and relevant resources related to this topic.
You can find other useful resources about this theme in our Publications section and in our Good Practices database.
If you have any questions or suggestions, please contact us at implementation@eucapnetwork.eu.
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