Agri-environment schemes benefit birds at the landscape level

Findings from a new study in the U.K. affirm the benefits to birds from conservation programs that integrate ecologically friendly practices into agriculture.

Martin Dallimer and fellow researchers looked at the impact of an agri-environmental scheme spanning 66,000 hectares in the Peak District - an upland area of England. Under the 20-year old program, the government has been paying farmers to decrease grazing intensity and fertilizer inputs - both of which are known to negatively affect birds.

The study surveyed avian abundance across 29 farms - some were enrolled in the program while others were not. The researchers found that "fields surrounded by a greater proportion of land in agri-environmental schemes had higher abundances of upland specialists and species of conservation concern."

These findings show that if enough land is enrolled in conservation programs, it can have landscape level benefits for birds that transcend the individual property.

This study is important because while programs to integrate conservation practices into agricultural land have been widely implemented worldwide, empirical data showing the benefits of these efforts to species has been lacking. The authors write,

"This provides evidence in support of the overall effectiveness of AESs, and we suggest that measures of their success must therefore consider the wider landscape scale in addition to localized impacts."

--by Rob Goldstein

Dallimer, M., Gaston, K., Skinner, A., Hanley, N., Acs, S., & Armsworth, P. (2010). Field-level bird abundances are enhanced by landscape-scale agri-environment scheme uptake Biology Letters DOI: 10.1098/rsbl.2010.0228