Farmer perspectives of the on-farm and off-farm pros and cons of planted multifunctional riparian margins

The planting of riparian margins is a policy option for pastoral farmers in response to land use induced environmental issues such as declining water quality, stream bank erosion, and loss of aquatic and terrestrial habitat. We elicited the views and experiences as to pros and cons of planting riparian margins from two sets of dairy farmers from Taranaki, New Zealand: those who are or have planted riparian margins, and those who have not yet done so. Those farmers who have planted riparian margins identified 21 positive aspects of riparian margin plantings and 11 negative aspects of riparian margin plantings. Perceived benefits identified by this group include water quality, increased biodiversity, the provision of cultural ecosystem services, immediate direct benefits to farm management and the farm system, and in some instances increased productivity on-farm. In contrast, those farmers that had fenced but not planted their riparian margins did not consider that riparian margin plantings could add further benefits to that which could be achieved by excluding stock from waterways, and associated only negative perceptions with riparian margin plantings. Planting riparian margins is not cost neutral and will not deliver anticipated environmental benefits in every situation. However, we argue that riparian margin plantings are an important ecological infrastructure investment that needs to be captured within a wider policy framework, the benefits of which extend beyond the mitigation of a single negative externality generated by land use practices, such as nutrient loss, and contribute to a multifunctional landscape

Change in ecosystem service provision within a lowland dairy landscape under different riparian margin scenarios

<p>Riparian margins can provide a range of environmental, social, and production benefits both on-farm and off-farm. However, our understanding of the relative advantage between various riparian-margin management options is limited. We aim to advance this knowledge by modelling change in food provision, water quality regulation, contact recreation, and amenity ecosystem services in response to riparian-margin management. Estimations in performance were made under grazed; fenced 1 m-wide grass-strips; and fenced 5 m-wide multi-tier planted riparian margin scenarios within a lowland dairy farming landscape as typical in the North Island, New Zealand. Our study allows for simultaneous analysis across the range of ecosystem services (provisioning, regulating, and cultural) and across spatial scales (farm, river network, catchment) as relevant to current policy focus for riparian management. We show both grass-strips and multi-tier planted margins can maintain or increase production values, while also making important contributions to environmental stewardship and community values. Under a multi-tier planted margin scenario, provision of amenity values also increases. Importantly, we also show that riparian management alone is not adequate to address detrimental outcomes of land use on receiving environments, and should be part of wider farm management practices used to maximise opportunities for sustained ecosystem service provision. This is an important consideration for land management policies.</p

Maseyk et al_BiodivConserv_Data&RScripts

1. R code DataPrep (R script for data compilation and file preparation); 2. R code LMM and graphs (R script for Linear Mixed Models and plotting); 3. Masterfile.csv (raw data file); 4. Abandoned.csv, Mowed.csv and Grazed.csv (input data by management type); 5. Count.csv, Cover.csv, Evar.csv, InvSimpson.csv (input data by metric)

Framing natural assets for advancing sustainability research: translating different perspectives into actions

Sustainability is a key challenge for humanity in the context of complex and unprecedented global changes. Future Earth, an international research initiative aiming to advance global sustainability science, has recently launched knowledge–action networks (KANs) as mechanisms for delivering its research strategy. The research initiative is currently developing a KAN on “natural assets” to facilitate and enable action-oriented research and synthesis towards natural assets sustainability. ‘Natural assets’ has been adopted by Future Earth as an umbrella term aiming to translate and bridge across different knowledge systems and different perspectives on peoples’ relationships with nature. In this paper, we clarify the framing of Future Earth around natural assets emphasizing the recognition on pluralism and identifying the challenges of translating different visions about the role of natural assets, including via policy formulation, for local to global sustainability challenges. This understanding will be useful to develop inter-and transdisciplinary solutions for human–environmental problems by (i) embracing richer collaborative decision processes and building bridges across different perspectives; (ii) giving emphasis on the interactions between biophysical and socioeconomic drivers affecting the future trends of investments and disinvestments in natural assets; and (iii) focusing on social equity, power relationships for effective application of the natural assets approach. This understanding also intends to inform the scope of the natural asset KAN’s research agenda to mobilize the translation of research into co-designed action for sustainability

Taming a Wicked Problem: Resolving Controversies in Biodiversity Offsetting

The rising popularity of biodiversity offsetting as a tool for balancing biodiversity losses from development with equivalent gains elsewhere has sparked debate on many fronts. The fundamental questions are the following: Is offsetting good, bad, or at least better than the status quo for biodiversity conservation outcomes, and what do we need to know to decide? We present a concise synthesis of the most contentious issues related to biodiversity offsetting, categorized as ethical, social, technical, or governance challenges. In each case, we discuss avenues for reducing disagreement over these issues and identify those that are likely to remain unresolved. We argue that there are many risks associated with the unscrutinized expansion of offset policy. Nevertheless, governments are increasingly adopting offset policies, so working rapidly to clarify and—where possible—to resolve these issues is essential