High Sequestration, Low Emission, Food Secure Farming. Organic Agriculture - a Guide to Climate Change & Food Security

- affordable high sequestration practices based on local resources - enables continuous farmer-based adaptation to climate change - ideal for the improvement of the world’s 400 million smallholder farms - locally adapted, affordable and people centered - empowers local communities - established practices, systems and markets - experience, practices and expertise to shar

Restoring Rangelands for Nutrition and Health for Humans and Livestock

Drylands cover 40% of the global land area and host 2 billion people, of which 90% live in low- or middleincome countries. Drylands often face severe land degradation, low agricultural productivity, rapid population growth, widespread poverty, and poor health. Governance structures and institutions are often eroded. Livestock-based livelihoods, largely depending on seasonal migration are common. Pastoralist communities and their land are highly vulnerable to climate shocks, while there are also changes in land tenure, insecurity/conflicts and rapid infrastructure development. Drylands Transform is an interdisciplinary research project revolving around the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The project aim is to contribute new knowledge to a transformative change and sustainable development of drylands in East Africa to help escape the ongoing negative spiral of land, livestock and livelihood degradation. We investigate the links between land health, livelihoods, human well-being, and land management and governance with several study sites along the Kenya-Uganda border. Through strong stakeholder engagement we will explore challenges and pathways towards a social-ecological transformation in these drylands. The entry point is the urgent need to identify and enhance synergies between food and nutrition security (SDG2), land and ecosystem health (SDG15) and governance and justice (SDG16) for sustainable dryland development, aiming to improve health and equity (SDGs 3 and 5), while minimizing trade-offs between agricultural productivity, natural resources management and climate change. We are using innovative field research approaches focusing on livelihood improvement through rangeland (grazing areas) restoration and governance interventions. We will present results from the initial work to assess land health using the Land Degradation Surveillance Framework and explore the links with human health and well-being through household survey data. We will also show how we will co-develop sustainable dryland management options (e.g., field experiments with fodder grasses and shrubs) with local communities and set-up knowledge sharing hubs

Combatting global grassland degradation

Grasslands are under severe threat from ongoing degradation, undermining their capacity to support biodiversity, ecosystem services and human well-being. Yet, grasslands are largely ignored in sustainable development agendas. In this Perspective, we examine the current state of global grasslands and explore the extent and dominant drivers of their degradation. Socio-ecological solutions are needed to combat degradation and promote restoration. Important strategies include: increasing recognition of grasslands in global policy; developing standardized indicators of degradation; using scientific innovation for effective restoration at regional and landscape scales; and enhancing knowledge transfer and data sharing on restoration experiences. Stakeholder needs can be balanced through standardized assessment and shared understanding of the potential ecosystem service trade-offs in degraded and restored grasslands. The integration of these actions into sustainability policy will aid in halting degradation and enhancing restoration success, and protect the socio-economic, cultural and ecological benefits that grasslands provide

Desertification

IPCC SPECIAL REPORT ON CLIMATE CHANGE AND LAND (SRCCL) Chapter 3: Climate Change and Land: An IPCC special report on climate change, desertification, land degradation, sustainable land management, food security, and greenhouse gas fluxes in terrestrial ecosystem

How does the economic risk aversion affect biodiversity?

The present paper analyses the role played by risk aversion in the reconciling of agricultural income and biodiversity. A bio-economic mode which articulates bird community dynamics and representative farmers selecting land uses within an uncertain macro-economic context is developed. It is spatialized and calibrated at a regional scale for France through national databases. The impact of risk aversion is assessed on economic, agricultural and ecological outputs through projections at the 2050 horizon. A high enough aversion proves sufficient to promote global bio-economic performance and multi-functional agriculture. This occurs through a diversification mechanism on regional land-uses. Spatial disparities however suggest that public incentives could be necessary to reinforce the diversification and bio-economic effectiveness.Agriculture, Aversion, Bio-economic modeling, Bird, Biodiversity, Diversification, Public good, Spatial

Information and communication on the designation and management of Natura2000 sites. Main Report 3: Towards Integrated Management

Following the selection of Special Protection Areas (SPA) and Sites of Community Importance (SCI) according to the Birds and the Habitats Directives, most European Member States are now in process of formally designating SPAs and SCIs as Special Areas of Conservation (SAC) or Natura2000 sites. These protected areas collectively form the European Union’s Natura2000 network. Member States are also selecting and implementing adequate management approaches and instruments to maintain and restore the favourable conservation status of protected species and habitat types and to prevent damage to the integrity of the sites. Both actions follow Articles 6.1 and 6.2 of the Habitats Directive. To help the Member States, the European Commission wishes to improve the knowledge and exchange of information and good practice both on the designation process of SPAs and SACs and on the establishment of conservation measures and instruments for these areas. Furthermore, the Commission wants to stress the importance of the sites and their management by involving a wider group of stakeholders in the development of so-called integrated management, in accordance with Article 2 of the Habitats Directive. The project ‘PREPARATORY ACTIONS- Lot 2: Information and communication on the designation and management of sites’ (tender ENV.B.2/SER/2007/0076) is intended to help the Commission to achieve these objectives. In this report we will elaborate on the concept of integrated management as an option for managing the sites. In the first part the meaning of integrated management will be explored. In a second part we give some examples of management approaches that we think illustrate best the concept of integrated management and its potential to achieve the Natura2000 goals

Ecological network design based on optimizing ecosystem services:case study in the Huang-Huai-Hai region, China

In modern agricultural landscapes, constructing ‘ecological networks’ is regarded as an efficient way to conserve biodiversity and maintain ecosystem services. Here we aimed to develop an approach to design ecological corridor by employing the ecological source - resistance surface - ecological corridor framework in combination with semi-natural habitat planning and ecosystem service trade-off assessment. ‘Ecological source patches’ were identified based on a ‘Remote Sensing Ecological Index’ (RSEI) to objectively classify ecological and environmental conditions. Our resulting spatial resistance surface was further modified used based on the ‘Cultivated Land Use Intensity’ index, to derive a high accuracy and rationality of ecological corridor extraction in agriculture landscape. While planning the ecological network, key nodes and resulting semi-natural habitat (SNH) distribution were identified using Linkage Mapper tools and circuit theory. We constructed ecological network scenarios with different amounts of semi-natural habitats and calculated resulting regional ecosystem service values (ESV) using an equivalence factor method to explore optimal spatial layouts. The results showed, while regional ecosystem service values generally increased in line with semi-natural habitat area contained within the ecological network, ecological networks with forests covering 10% of the total area were predicted as an optimal scenario balancing ecosystem services with agricultural yield in the study region. Networks with mixed forest and grassland cover totaling 20% of the area represented an alternative choice that strongly enhanced regional ecosystem services while may still allowing for high agricultural productivity. In constructing corridors, identifying, restoring and protecting key ecological nodes using targeted management and habitat restoration, while protecting existing wetlands and other water bodies that support regional water cycle and supply services, should be prioritized. Regional policy measures furthermore need to promote targeted ecological network planning to help improve the overall sustainability of agricultural production

Where and how to conserve : Extending the scope of spatial reserve network design

Ongoing habitat loss and fragmentation threaten much of the biodiversity that we know today. As such, conservation efforts are required if we want to protect biodiversity. Conservation budgets are typically tight, making the cost-effective selection of protected areas difficult. Therefore, reserve design methods have been developed to identify sets of sites, that together represent the species of conservation interest in a cost-effective manner. To be able to select reserve networks, data on species distributions is needed. Such data is often incomplete, but species habitat distribution models (SHDMs) can be used to link the occurrence of the species at the surveyed sites to the environmental conditions at these locations (e.g. climatic, vegetation and soil conditions). The probability of the species occurring at unvisited location is next predicted by the model, based on the environmental conditions of those sites. The spatial configuration of reserve networks is important, because habitat loss around reserves can influence the persistence of species inside the network. Since species differ in their requirements for network configuration, the spatial cohesion of networks needs to be species-specific. A way to account for species-specific requirements is to use spatial variables in SHDMs. Spatial SHDMs allow the evaluation of the effect of reserve network configuration on the probability of occurrence of the species inside the network. Even though reserves are important for conservation, they are not the only option available to conservation planners. To enhance or maintain habitat quality, restoration or maintenance measures are sometimes required. As a result, the number of conservation options per site increases. Currently available reserve selection tools do however not offer the ability to handle multiple, alternative options per site. This thesis extends the existing methodology for reserve design, by offering methods to identify cost-effective conservation planning solutions when multiple, alternative conservation options are available per site. Although restoration and maintenance measures are beneficial to certain species, they can be harmful to other species with different requirements. This introduces trade-offs between species when identifying which conservation action is best applied to which site. The thesis describes how the strength of such trade-offs can be identified, which is useful for assessing consequences of conservation decisions regarding species priorities and budget. Furthermore, the results of the thesis indicate that spatial SHDMs can be successfully used to account for species-specific requirements for spatial cohesion - in the reserve selection (single-option) context as well as in the multi-option context. Accounting for the spatial requirements of multiple species and allowing for several conservation options is however complicated, due to trade-offs in species requirements. It is also shown that spatial SHDMs can be successfully used for gaining information on factors that drive a species spatial distribution. Such information is valuable to conservation planning, as better knowledge on species requirements facilitates the design of networks for species persistence. This methods and results described in this thesis aim to improve species probabilities of persistence, by taking better account of species habitat and spatial requirements. Many real-world conservation planning problems are characterised by a variety of conservation options related to protection, restoration and maintenance of habitat. Planning tools therefore need to be able to incorporate multiple conservation options per site, in order to continue the search for cost-effective conservation planning solutions. Simultaneously, the spatial requirements of species need to be considered. The methods described in this thesis offer a starting point for combining these two relevant aspects of conservation planning.Monien lajien elinympäristöt vähenevät, mikä uhkaa lajien selviytymistä pitkällä aikavälillä. Lajien sukupuuttoja voidaan ehkäistä luonnonsuojelualueita perustamalla. Suojelutyöhän varatut varat ovat kuitenkin rajalliset, joten luonnonsuojelualueiden sijoittaminen täytyy harkita tarkkaan. Suojelualueverkostojen suunnittelu on tieteenala, joka käsittelee suojelualueiden hankintaan varattujen varojen tehokasta käyttöä. Alueiden suojelu ei ole ainoa tapa auttaa lajien säilymistä. Laadultaan heikentyneiden elinympäristöjen kuntoa voidaan parantaa. Jotkin elinympäristötyypit vaativat hoitoa pysyäkseen tietynlaisina. Esimerkiksi kedot, joista monet lajit ovat riippuvaisia, metsittyvät vähitellen ilman hoitoa. Niinpä suojelusuunnittelussa täytyy päättää käytetäänkö suojelun tukena hoitotoimia elinympäristöjen säilyttämiseksi. Suojelusuunnittelussa käytettävät tietokoneohjelmistot eivät osaa vastata kysymykseen siitä, kuinka suojeltavia alueita tulisi hoitaa niiden avulla saadaan selville vain se, mitkä alueet kannattaa suojella. Olen kehittänyt väitöskirjatyössäni menetelmiä, joiden avulla voidaan määrittää mikä suojelun taso tai hoitotoimi alueelle kannattaa kohdentaa toimittaessa kustannustehokkaasti. Kun hoitotoimi on suotuisa yhdelle lajille, saattaa se olla haitallinen toiselle lajille. Tästä syystä kokonaisuuden kannalta parhaan hoitotoimen määrittäminen on vaikeaa. Kehittämäni menetelmät auttavat vaihtoehtoisten suojelu- ja hoitotoimien suunnittelemisessa sekä suojelupäätösten seurausten arvioimisessa. Suojelualuesuunnittelussa on tärkeää huomioida alueiden sijoittelu toisiinsa nähden, sillä yksilöiden liikkuminen eri suojelualueiden välillä on lajiston säilymisen kannalta tärkeää. Koska eri lajien leviämiskyvyt ovat erilaiset, tulee suojelualueverkoston rakennetta arvioida lajien ominaisuudet huomioiden. Osoitan työssäni kuinka lajien esiintymisen todennäköisyys kasvaa kun suojeluverkoston rakenteessa huomioidaan lajien leviämiskyvyt. Suojelualueverkoston rakenteen huomioiminen on erityisen vaikeaa silloin, kun käytettävissä on useita vaihtoehtoisia suojelutoimia, mutta esitän työssäni tälle ongelmalle yhtä lajia kerrallaan tarkastelevan ratkaisun. Jotta lajien pitkän aikavälin säilymistä autetaan parhaalla tavalla, tulee suojeluun varatut resurssit kohdentaa mahdollisimman tehokkaasti. Suojelusuunnittelussa täytyy yleensä valita yksi vaihtoehtoisista suojelu- tai hoitotoimista kullekin kohteelle. Nämä vaihtoehtoiset toimet tulee siten sisällyttää suojelusuunnittelussa käytettäviin menetelmiin ja tietokoneohjelmistoihin. Väitöskirjatyöni ottaa ensimmäisen askeleen tähän suuntaan, ja näyttää kuinka suojelualueverkoston rakenteessa voidaan huomioida lajien erilaiset liikkumiskyvyt ja elintilatarpeet.Steeds meer habitat van veel plant- en diersoorten verdwijnt. Deze soorten worden daardoor in hun voortbestaan bedreigd. Om deze soorten en hun habitat te beschermen, kunnen natuurreservaten worden aangewezen. Het budget voor natuurbescherming is echter beperkt, waardoor er nauwkeurig gekeken moet worden welke gebieden het best aangewezen kunnen worden als natuurgebied. Computerprogramma’s kunnen helpen bij het identificeren van gebieden die samen een kosteneffectief natuurnetwerk vormen. Om habitat en soorten te beschermen, is het aanwijzen van natuurgebieden niet de enige mogelijkheid. Natuurherstel en –beheersmaatregelen kunnen nodig zijn om bijvoorbeeld vegetatie in de gewenste conditie te krijgen en te houden. Zo zouden heide of extensief grasland mettertijd bos kunnen worden, als er niet begraasd, gemaaid of geplagd wordt. Hierdoor zou het habitat voor soorten die leven in extensieve graslanden en heide verdwijnen. In het natuurbeheer moet men daarom niet alleen beslissen welke plekken er beschermd moeten worden, maar ook welke herstel- of beheersmaatregelen nodig zijn. De computerprogramma’s die gebruikt worden voor het selecteren van natuurnetwerken, zijn niet geschikt voor het beantwoorden van de vraag hoe plekken het beste beheerd kunnen worden, wanneer er meerdere beschermings- of beheersopties per plek zijn. In dit proefschrift zijn methoden beschreven die wel hulp kunnen bieden bij het maken van beslissingen over hoe verschillende plekken te beheren op een kosteneffectieve manier. Zulke informatie kan gebruikt worden bij het maken van beslissingen over natuurbeheer. Bij het selecteren van natuurreservaten is het belangrijk om de ruimtelijke samenhang van de verschillende reservaten in ogenschouw te nemen. Dit, om de uitwisseling van individuen van soorten tussen de verschillende gebieden mogelijk te maken, wat belangrijk is voor het voorbestaan van soorten. De behoefte voor de grootte van plekken en de ruimtelijke samenhang van die plekken verschilt per soort, waar bij het ontwerp van netwerken rekening moet worden gehouden. Dit proefschrift beschrijft hoe de kans op voorkomen van soorten in het reservaatnetwerk toeneemt, naarmate meer rekening wordt gehouden met de specifieke behoeften aan samenhang van die soorten in het ontwerp van reservaatnetwerken. Wanneer er meerdere beschermings- en beheersopties per plek mogelijk zijn, dan wordt het moeilijk om tegelijkertijd rekening te houden met soort-specifieke eisen aan ruimtelijke samenhang. Dit komt doordat beheersmaatregelen die gunstig zijn voor bepaalde soorten (zoals begrazing van grasland voor graslandsoorten, bijv. sommige vlinders), tegelijkertijd ongunstig kunnen zijn voor andere soorten (bijv. bosplanten). Het proefschrift beschrijft een methode voor het plannen met meerdere opties én ruimtelijke samenhang, voor één soort tegelijkertijd. Om soorten ook op de lange termijn te behouden, is een kosteneffectieve besteding van budget voor natuurbehoud nodig. Het plannen van natuurbeschermingsmaatregelen omvat vaak een keuze tussen meerdere alternatieve maatregelen per plek. De computerprogramma’s ter ondersteuning van planning voor natuurbeheer moeten daarom geschikt gemaakt worden voor meerdere opties. Dit proefschrift maakt een eerste stap in die richting, en geeft ook suggesties hoe expliciet rekening kan worden gehouden met de specifieke eisen van soorten voor ruimtelijke samenhang van natuurgebieden