Hi, Jorgen,

While low intensity pasture land sounds like a good idea, I doubt, that giving up small isolated patches of "nature" is. Of example small strips of unused meadow at a fields margin can be an important refuge for "weed" plants.

During a field course with students we (or rather - a colleagure, who knows more about botany than myself) discovered a surptisingly high number of plant species at the margins of intensively used fields. Many of these plants were flowers,which provide food for insects. These insects may even be important for the farmers as pollinators of various fruits.

Isolated trees may have an important functions for birds, etc., especially when they are the last ones in a landscape devoid of structure.

Why dont you try to make these "isolated patches of nature" a network of islands of nature?

Dont worry too much about farmers complaining. They have their own lobby, nature does not.

Good luck & best wishes

Irene

Thank you, Irene. We are not giving up small areas if they are habitat for important biodiversity. But in the long term we may reduce overall loss of biodiversity by discarding the more or less degraded isolated patches at the same time enlarging and combining less fragmented nature of better quality. This is actually a deal proposed by the farmers because they want less regulation to affect their possibilities to expand or develop their business. Larger blocks of nature are preferred rather than scattered patches. The political and economic reality is that we have to maximize improvements of nature and minimize the impacts for farmers. I am perhaps looking for a more cynical answer in respect to whether combining the best parts will reduce loss of biodiversity compared to keeping the isolated patches, many of which are too small to be grazed or cut.

I tend to agree with the farmers' proposal/deal. Keeping the ISOLATED patches, which you described as "too small to be grazed or cut", will not contribute much to the reduction of biodiversity anyway. Best regards

Hi Jorgen

Like Irene, I would be wary of losing small pockets of nature, where biodiversity may be surprisingly high. Even field boundaries may have high diversity of isopods, orthopterans and beetles, as work in France and Ireland showed. In Ireland, small ungrazed or unmanaged fens often contain high diversity of plants and animals.

In the context of sustainable development of entire social-ecological systems, to me an adaptive approach still provides a fundamental framework for the implementation and adaptation of land management and polices over time as more information is collected. A crucial issue then could be developing landscape planning (e.g., restoration) that might accommodate for surprises and for variation of land-use pattern as humans will change land-use, and especially land management, to adjust to climate change. In this respect, new conceptual frameworks for the design of landscape sustainability are emerging to establish how landscape condition can be made sustainable in face of unpredictable disturbance and change (e.g., Olsson et al., 2004; Folke et al., 2005; Musacchio, 2009; Opdam et al., 2009; Ostrom, 2009; Benayas and Bullock 2012; Zurlini et al., 2013; Jones et al., 2013).

Strategies to this end could involve the design and management of landscape elements and structure to create less contagious and more heterogeneous rural landscapes enhancing biodiversity-oriented connectivity. In this respect, smallholder farming systems are crucial for rural sustainability. This can imply the strategic placement of managed and semi-natural ecosystems in landscapes to reduce stress intensity, so the services of natural ecosystems (e.g., commodities, water availability, pollination, reduced land erosion, soil formation) can be even enhanced (Jones et al., 2013). Land separation and land sharing are examples of such strategies (Benayas and Bullock, 2012). The first involves restoring or creating non-farmland habitat in agricultural landscapes through, for example, woodlands, natural grasslands, hedgerows, wetlands, and meadows on arable lands (Benayas and Bullock, 2012), or riparian habitats (Jones et al., 2010) to benefit wildlife and specific services. Land sharing involves the adoption of biodiversity-based agricultural practices, learning from traditional farming practices, transformation of conventional agriculture into organic agriculture and of „„simple‟‟ crops and pastures into agro-forestry systems. Some existing smallholder farming systems already have high water-, nutrient-, and energy-use efficiencies and conserve resources and biodiversity without losing yield (Kiers et al., 2008).

A key aspect is to implement monitoring programs to evolve iteratively as new information emerges and research and managing questions change. This helps evaluate how environmental targets and ecosystem services respond to specific landscape pattern designs, and whether or not certain landscape patterns at multiple scales result in synergies and trade-offs among different types of ecosystem services. In a nutshell, learning from what we are doing and from what we have already done.

First of all. You have to define what you want. "management of fragmented nature?" is too broad. What is the goal of conservation? Connectivity? Target species? Ecosystem services? Then you will have what to focus on and define the priority sites and actions.

I would agree with most of the ideas posted above. Ranieri's suggestions may lead us into very interesting debate. One of the key components in biodiversity management is to have clear goals/objectives which will then lead to the development of appropriate action plans. I envisage that the question refers to a land that has mosaic land use patterns and the need to conserve isolated patches of biodiversity hotspots may be high. However, depending on the objectives of the landholders there is need to reach a consensus among all key stakeholders and consider integrated land-based development plans. One will find that discussions may lead to the establishment of linkages between isolated patches to allow the movement of animals (if any) and create green belts interspaced with farming lands. Others now talk of integrating agriculture and biodiversity conservation through what are termed “protect-and-connect” policies and practices. These can contribute to the biodiversity value in the vicinity of farming areas and special attention should be paid to agrobiodiversity. Here the use of agricultural chemicals and fertilisers should be considered within a broader context designed to minimise negative conservation impacts and maximise agricultural productivity. One other suggestion may be to re-organise land use patterns where larger pieces of land are designated for a particular use. The only disadvantage of this arrangement is that there could be areas with rich biodiversity that if tempered with can have detrimental effects to biodiversity conservation.

Thank you all for very interesting inputs. It appears that I have been a bit vague about our objectives. The management is part of our Natura-2000 responsibilities to secure favourable conservation status of EU Habitat Directive vegetation types and annex species, wherever they have been mapped or recorded within our Natura 2000 areas. Detailed land cover mapping exist and plenty of data are available which have been used to calculate the state of preservation for land cover types and species. Also, money has been granted to secure favourable state of preservation for the mapped land cover types and annex species wherever the state has been calculated or evaluated as unfavourable. The question is how to spend the available money in a wise manner in a landscape with fragmented nature and in an environment where land use is operated under the rules of the market place. Giovanni Zurlini presents some interesting concepts of integration with landscape planning which however is not a tool that is available to us at present. Also smallholder farming systems are long gone by in Denmark in which country the pressures of the market place result in farms of ever growing sizes. The price for land and farms are now so high that the prediction is that only investment companies will be able to buy farms large enough to be profitable and the number of farmers that actually own the land they cultivate are going to dwindle.

A consensus from the answers provided above seem to indicate that a broader perspective is needed and that politicians need to integrate Natura 2000 responsibilities with landscape planning if we are going to succeed in reaching our goals.

A general strategy might not be always the best one. In each case I would look what are the gains and the losses, if you give up nature conservation areas. Therefore a sound knowledge of the existing values, species is crucial.

To increase habitat connectivity through agriculturally used land Switzerland implemented a cross compliance system and it set up an ordinance to do so called “network-projects” with the idea to endorse isolated populations of threatened species and to increase habitat quality with regionally adapted measures. Farmers get financial contributions therefore. The implementation of such projects needs very skilled advisory services with the knowledge of both farming and nature conservation. Some of this projects have been very successful. You may ask Simon Birrer or Markus Jenny (Schweizerische Vogelwarte) for the Klettgau and the Champagne genevoise projects. May be you know them already. Unfortunately such implementations are still to scarce.

I agree with the farmers' proposal in principle. However, one needs to be cautious about defining patches as "degraded" or of lower value when examining landscape-scale processes. GIS-based, desktop planning can obscure reality, and small, isolated and apparently degraded patches can occur on little ecological islands that are key resources for species. The patches are there for a reason, meaning that they are different from the surrounding cultivated farmland.

In other words, do your desktop planning but get boots on the ground to examine the patches before signing anything. I've seen a couple of desktop-based planning exercises derailed by someone simply driving out to the landscape in question to have a closer look.

Management of fragmented nature.

1.

I recommend these 2 short papers: fragmented nature management with special focus on buffer zones, corridors and core areas, " The Wider Landscape for Nature Conservation: ecological corridors and buffer zones ": http://bd.eionet.europa.eu/publications/ECNC_1995.pdf

2. 

Effect of fragmented habitats for larger herbivores, and different type of managements, in the end with nice references list:

http://www.biw.kuleuven.be/lbh/lbnl/ecology/pdf-files/pdf-art/martine/Couvreuretal_Epizoochory_2004_AVS7%201%20.229-236.pdf

Thank you Attila

I will definitely take a look at the suggested papers. Thanks!