scholarly journals Agricultural rewilding: a prospect for livestock systems

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Aymeric Mondiere ◽  
Michael S Corson ◽  
Lois Morel ◽  
Hayo MG van der Werf
Keyword(s):  
Land Use ◽  
Ecosystem Services ◽  
Ecological Integrity ◽  
Agricultural Landscapes ◽  
Plant Production ◽  
Human Intervention ◽  
Ecological Processes ◽  
Key Species ◽  
Agroecological Transition ◽  
Livestock Systems

CONTEXT: Agricultural intensification is a major cause of biodiversity loss. Biodiversity conservation and restoration generally involve human intervention. In comparison, rewilding, a radically different approach to address the erosion of biodiversity, aims to increase the ability of ecological processes to act with little or no human intervention, and thus to enhance biodiversity and the supply of ecosystem services. OBJECTIVE: In this review and call to explore the potential of rewilding for agriculture, in particular for livestock systems, we identified effects of agroecological livestock systems on biodiversity and analysed similarities, differences and complementarities between the agroecological transition and the rewilding of livestock systems.METHODS: We researched literature in the Web of Science Core Collection that focussed on biodiversity, livestock, agriculture, rewilding and interactions among them.RESULTS AND CONCLUSIONS: Agricultural rewilding is an emerging form of land use that we conceptually position between agroecology and rewilding. It combines restoration of ecological processes with some degree of agricultural production, most often of animals. Over time, human land-use has aimed to increase plant and animal output, which has degraded the ecological integrity of ecosystems. This process of dewilding accelerated with the advent of agriculture. In recent decades, certain agricultural landscapes and farms have evolved in the opposite direction, decreasing material human inputs and improving ecological integrity. This evolution takes three forms: agroecological transition, agricultural rewilding and rewilding. Of these, the first and third concern relatively large areas. A selection of 11 agricultural rewilding projects established for at least 5 years in the United Kingdom had areas of 121-4402 ha. The projects targeted 48 key species/breeds, 23 of which were ecosystem engineers: 18 grazers, 4 pig breeds and beavers. The main actions to enhance rewilding were extensive grazing and habitat restoration. The main economic activities were meat or animal sales, tourism and education programmes. Agricultural rewilding may provide a multifunctional model to which livestock farms may transition to respond better to societal demands.SIGNIFICANCE: Agricultural rewilding offers a new and inspiring prospect for livestock systems and poses research questions about its relation to agroecology and rewilding, its implementation, its potential for plant production and its value for livestock farmers. The forms it can take remain to be explored, and the potential influence of these forms on biodiversity, ecosystem services and environmental impacts needs to be characterised. Exploring the forms that agricultural rewilding may take requires close collaboration among ecologists, animal scientists and agronomists.

Novel approaches to evaluate sustainability of pasture-based livestock systems

2016 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 185-190
Author(s):  
A. Bernués
Keyword(s):  
Ecosystem Services ◽  
Public Goods ◽  
Policy Design ◽  
Economic Value ◽  
Market Price ◽  
Farming Systems ◽  
Agricultural Landscapes ◽  
Livestock Farming ◽  
Livestock Farming Systems ◽  
Livestock Systems

Pasture-based livestock systems, often located in High Value Nature farmland areas, hold the greatest potential to deliver public goods across European agricultural systems. They play an important role in preserving agricultural landscapes, farmland biodiversity, cultural heritage, and in sustaining rural development. However, many of these functions are ignored in evaluation frameworks because public goods do not have market price and are often ignored in policy design, so farmers do not get the appropriate incentives to provide them. Different conceptual frameworks can be utilized to evaluate the multiple functions or services of these systems: Multifunctional Agriculture, Ecosystem Services, and Total Economic Value. We analyze the common characteristics of these concepts (e.g. they place human benefits and societal demands at the core of their definitions), their specificities (e.g. use of different units of analysis and spatial-temporal scales), and how they can be embedded in the wider concept of sustainability. Finally, we illustrate how the different concepts can be combined to evaluate pasture-based livestock farming systems from a socio-cultural and economic perspective. The public goods (ecosystem services) provided by representative case studies in Mediterranean and Nordic regions are quantified (also in monetary terms) under different environmental/policy scenarios. The results show that there is a clear underestimation of the socio-cultural and economic values of ecosystem services provided by these farming systems. They also show that the social welfare loss linked to further abandonment of livestock farming, and the associated environmental degradation, is very large. From a societal perspective, it is necessary to jointly measure the biophysical, socio-cultural and monetary values of ecosystem services (market and nonmarket) in order to promote the sustainability of pasture-based livestock systems.

scholarly journals Contributing to Healthy Landscapes by Sustainable Land Use Planning

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Selma B. Pena ◽  
Maria Luísa Franco ◽  
Manuela R. Magalhães
Keyword(s):  
Land Use ◽  
Land Use Planning ◽  
Ecological Integrity ◽  
Landscape Scale ◽  
Sustainable Land Use ◽  
Ecological Processes ◽  
Soil Biodiversity ◽  
Centre Region ◽  
Multifunctional Landscape ◽  
Sustainable Landscape

The ecological-based methodologies are determinant to develop complete strategies in restoring the ecosystems at a landscape scale. Those methodologies start with comprehending ecological processes by mapping fundamental structures of the territory (water, soil, biodiversity), also called green infrastructures. The adequate land use planning and its forthcoming implementation will guarantee a multifunctional landscape, better ecosystem services provision, and a possibility of developing new economies. The intervention of Landscape Architecture at the landscape scale will also provide information about the place and the type of restoration actions to be implemented. The Centre Region was the most affected by rural fires from 2017, representing 15% of the total region area (416 thousand hectares). These events reflect the high importance of rethinking the territory with more suitable land uses, considering the concepts of sustainability, resilience, and ecological integrity. This work proposes a Landscape Transformation Plan for the Centre Region of Portugal, applying the FIRELAN model. The results show that about 35% of the Centre Region should have restoration action towards a more sustainable landscape.

scholarly journals Participatory Mapping of Demand for Ecosystem Services in Agricultural Landscapes

Agriculture ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (12) ◽  
pp. 1193
Author(s):  
Carmen Schwartz ◽  
Mostafa Shaaban ◽  
Sonoko Dorothea Bellingrath-Kimura ◽  
Annette Piorr
Keyword(s):  
Land Use ◽  
Ecosystem Services ◽  
Agricultural Land ◽  
Arable Land ◽  
Agricultural Landscapes ◽  
The Body ◽  
Poor Correlation ◽  
Stakeholder Groups ◽  
Trade Offs ◽  
Stakeholder Workshop

Agricultural land use systems have been optimized for producing provisioning ecosystem services (ES) in the past few decades, often at the expense of regulating and cultural services. Research has focused mainly on the supply side of ES and related trade-offs, but the demand side for regulatory services remains largely neglected. The objective of this paper is to evaluate the usefulness of participatory geographic information system (PGIS) methods for demand assessment in larger rural and agrarian contexts by identifying spatially explicit demand patterns for ES, thereby enlarging the body of participatory approaches to ES-based land use management. Accordingly, we map, assess, and statistically and spatially analyze different demands for five ES by different stakeholder groups in agricultural landscapes in three case studies. The results are presented in a stakeholder workshop and prerequisites for collaborative ES management are discussed. Our results show that poor correlation exists between stakeholder groups and demands for ES; however, arable land constitutes the highest share of the mapped area of demands for the five ES. These results have been validated by both the survey and the stakeholder workshop. Our study concludes that PGIS represents a useful tool to link demand assessments and landscape management systematically, especially for decision support systems.

scholarly journals Social-Ecological Connectivity to Understand Ecosystem Service Provision across Networks in Urban Landscapes

Land ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 9 (12) ◽  
pp. 530
Author(s):  
Monika Egerer ◽  
Elsa Anderson
Keyword(s):  
Land Use ◽  
Ecosystem Services ◽  
Landscape Connectivity ◽  
Urban Ecosystem ◽  
Landscape Scale ◽  
Urban Landscapes ◽  
Ecological Processes ◽  
Ecological Connectivity ◽  
Social Ecological ◽  
Scale Network

Landscape connectivity is a critical component of dynamic processes that link the structure and function of networks at the landscape scale. In the Anthropocene, connectivity across a landscape-scale network is influenced not only by biophysical land use features, but also by characteristics and patterns of the social landscape. This is particularly apparent in urban landscapes, which are highly dynamic in land use and often in social composition. Thus, landscape connectivity, especially in cities, must be thought of in a social-ecological framework. This is relevant when considering ecosystem services—the benefits that people derive from ecological processes and properties. As relevant actors move through a connected landscape-scale network, particular services may “flow” better across space and time. For this special issue on dynamic landscape connectivity, we discuss the concept of social-ecological networks using urban landscapes as a focal system to highlight the importance of social-ecological connectivity to understand dynamic urban landscapes, particularly in regards to the provision of urban ecosystem services.

scholarly journals Assessing the bird guild patterns in heterogeneous land use types around Jammu, Jammu and Kashmir, India

2020 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Asha Sohil ◽  
Neeraj Sharma
Keyword(s):  
Land Use ◽  
Natural Habitat ◽  
Habitat Preferences ◽  
Ecological Integrity ◽  
Bird Species ◽  
Agricultural Landscapes ◽  
Conservation Strategies ◽  
Feeding Guilds ◽  
Guild Structure ◽  
Jammu And Kashmir

Abstract Land-use sprawl in the Himalayas has caused the conversion of natural habitat into human-modified habitats, thus degrading ecosystem health. Adaptation of birds to changing physical environment can be well understood by analyzing their habitat preferences, and foraging dynamics explored to a limited extent in the Himalayan region, as yet. To achieve a comprehensive understanding of avian guild structure, we used multivariate statistical techniques to classify bird species according to their similarities in foraging patterns and habitat preferences. Observations based on habitat and diet affinities accounted for rich avian diversity with a total of 208 bird species (about 15% of country’s avifauna) recorded from six different sites during 1 year survey. Unweighted pair-group average cluster analysis performed on the families revealed ten feeding and fifteen habitat guilds among 63 bird families observed. Subtropical forests harbored more species followed by urban forests and agricultural landscapes. Insectivorous and omnivorous outnumbered other feeding guilds in the study area. Bird assemblages were richer in protected areas and semi-disturbed landscapes and did not show significant variation between the seasons. Results of the study revealed that different functional groups of birds behaved differently, primarily induced by choice of food. The site heterogeneity favored avifaunal persistence by providing favorable foraging, roosting, and nesting opportunities to birds. Composition of avian guilds indicated level of intactness and ecological integrity of ecosystems studied. This outcome thus sets the background for long-term analysis of bird-habitat relationship and their foraging dynamics. The study has the relevance for decision-makers to integrate avian guild structure as an essential ingredient in formulating conservation strategies.

scholarly journals Exploring complementarities between modelling approaches that enable upscaling from plant community functioning to ecosystem services as a way to support agroecological transition

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Noémie Gaudio ◽  
Gaëtan Louarn ◽  
Romain Barillot ◽  
Clémentine Meunier ◽  
Rémi Vezy ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Ecosystem Services ◽  
Plant Diversity ◽  
Agricultural Practices ◽  
Plant Interactions ◽  
Ecological Processes ◽  
Spatial And Temporal Scales ◽  
Temporal Prediction ◽  
Agroecological Transition ◽  
Transition Modelling ◽  
The Many

Abstract Promoting plant diversity through crop mixtures is a mainstay of the agroecological transition. Modelling this transition requires considering both plant-plant interactions and plants’ interactions with abiotic and biotic environments. Modelling crop mixtures enables designing ways to use plant diversity to provide ecosystem services, as long as they include crop management as input. A single modelling approach is not sufficient, however, and complementarities between models may be critical to consider the multiple processes and system components involved at different and relevant spatial and temporal scales. In this article, we present different modelling solutions implemented in a variety of examples to upscale models from local interactions to ecosystem services. We highlight that modelling solutions (i.e. coupling, metamodelling, inverse or hybrid modelling) are built according to modelling objectives (e.g. understand the relative contributions of primary ecological processes to crop mixtures, quantify impacts of the environment and agricultural practices, assess the resulting ecosystem services) rather than to the scales of integration. Many outcomes of multispecies agroecosystems remain to be explored, both experimentally and through the heuristic use of modelling. Combining models to address plant diversity and predict ecosystem services at different scales remains rare but is critical to support the spatial and temporal prediction of the many systems that could be designed.

scholarly journals Deriving a per-field land use and land cover map in an agricultural mosaic catchment

2014 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. 339-352 ◽  
Author(s):  
B. Seo ◽  
C. Bogner ◽  
P. Poppenborg ◽  
E. Martin ◽  
M. Hoffmeister ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Land Use ◽  
Ecosystem Services ◽  
Land Cover ◽  
Earth Science ◽  
Agricultural Landscapes ◽  
Agricultural Practice ◽  
Services Research ◽  
Additional Information ◽  
Lack Of Information ◽  
Linear Landscape Elements

Abstract. Detailed data on land use and land cover constitute important information for Earth system models, environmental monitoring and ecosystem services research. Global land cover products are evolving rapidly; however, there is still a lack of information particularly for heterogeneous agricultural landscapes. We censused land use and land cover field by field in the agricultural mosaic catchment Haean in South Korea. We recorded the land cover types with additional information on agricultural practice. In this paper we introduce the data, their collection and the post-processing protocol. Furthermore, because it is important to quantitatively evaluate available land use and land cover products, we compared our data with the MODIS Land Cover Type product (MCD12Q1). During the studied period, a large portion of dry fields was converted to perennial crops. Compared to our data, the forested area was underrepresented and the agricultural area overrepresented in MCD12Q1. In addition, linear landscape elements such as waterbodies were missing in the MODIS product due to its coarse spatial resolution. The data presented here can be useful for earth science and ecosystem services research. The data are available at the public repository Pangaea (doi:110.1594/PANGAEA.823677).

scholarly journals Deriving a per-field land use and land cover map in an agricultural mosaic catchment

2014 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 271-304 ◽  
Author(s):  
B. Seo ◽  
C. Bogner ◽  
P. Poppenborg ◽  
E. Martin ◽  
M. Hoffmeister ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Land Use ◽  
Ecosystem Services ◽  
Land Cover ◽  
Earth Science ◽  
Agricultural Landscapes ◽  
Agricultural Practice ◽  
Services Research ◽  
Additional Information ◽  
Lack Of Information ◽  
Linear Landscape Elements

Abstract. Detailed data on land use and land cover constitutes important information for Earth system models, environmental monitoring and ecosystem services research. Global land cover products are evolving rapidly, however, there is still a lack of information particularly for heterogeneous agricultural landscapes. We censused land use and land cover field by field in an agricultural mosaic catchment Haean, South Korea. We recorded the land cover types with additional information on agricultural practice and make this data available at the public repository Pangaea (doi:10.1594/PANGAEA.823677). In this paper we introduce the data, its collection and the post-processing protocol. During the studied period, a large portion of dry fields was converted to perennial crops. A comparison between our dataset and MODIS Land Cover Type (MCD12Q1) suggested that the MODIS product was restricted in this area since it does not distinguish irrigated fields from general croplands. In addition, linear landscape elements such as water bodies were not detected in the MODIS product due to its coarse spatial resolution. The data presented here can be useful for earth science and ecosystem services research.

scholarly journals Ecosystem Services in Agricultural Landscapes: A Spatially Explicit Approach to Support Sustainable Soil Management

2014 ◽  
Vol 2014 ◽  
pp. 1-13 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mohsen Forouzangohar ◽  
Neville D. Crossman ◽  
Richard J. MacEwan ◽  
D. Dugal Wallace ◽  
Lauren T. Bennett
Keyword(s):  
Land Use ◽  
Ecosystem Services ◽  
Water Storage ◽  
Agricultural Landscapes ◽  
Organic Carbon Content ◽  
Land Uses ◽  
Soil Ecosystem ◽  
Land Use Scenario ◽  
Eastern Australia ◽  
Soil Ecosystem Services

Soil degradation has been associated with a lack of adequate consideration of soil ecosystem services. We demonstrate a broadly applicable method for mapping changes in the supply of two priority soil ecosystem services to support decisions about sustainable land-use configurations. We used a landscape-scale study area of 302 km2in northern Victoria, south-eastern Australia, which has been cleared for intensive agriculture. Indicators representing priority soil services (soil carbon sequestration and soil water storage) were quantified and mapped under both a current and a future 25-year land-use scenario (the latter including a greater diversity of land uses and increased perennial crops and irrigation). We combined diverse methods, including soil analysis using mid-infrared spectroscopy, soil biophysical modelling, and geostatistical interpolation. Our analysis suggests that the future land-use scenario would increase the landscape-level supply of both services over 25 years. Soil organic carbon content and water storage to 30 cm depth were predicted to increase by about 11% and 22%, respectively. Our service maps revealed the locations of hotspots, as well as potential trade-offs in service supply under new land-use configurations. The study highlights the need to consider diverse land uses in sustainable management of soil services in changing agricultural landscapes.

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