Spatial scale mismatches in the eu agri-biodiversity conservation policy. The case for a shift to landscape-scale design

Francesca L. Falco; Eran Feitelson; Tamar Dayan

doi:10.3390/land10080846

Spatial scale mismatches in the eu agri-biodiversity conservation policy. The case for a shift to landscape-scale design

Francesca L. Falco^*, Eran Feitelson, Tamar Dayan

^*Corresponding author for this work

Department of Geography

Research output: Contribution to journal › Review article › peer-review

7 Scopus citations

Abstract

Agriculture is a major driver of the ongoing biodiversity decline, demanding an urgent transition towards a system that reconciles productivity and profitability with nature conservation; however, where public policies promote such transitions are in place, their design often poorly fits the relevant biogeophysical systems, decreasing the policies’ expected effectiveness. Spatial scale mismatches are a primary example in this regard. The literature reviewed in this paper, drawing from both ecology and policy studies, suggests to foster policy implementation at the landscape scale, where most functional ecological processes—and the delivery of related ecosystem services—occur on farmland. Two strategies are identified for coordinating policy implementation at the landscape scale: the promotion of farmers’ collective action and the partition of space on an ecologically sound basis through spatial planning. As the new European Union Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) post-2023 is currently being defined, we assess if and how the draft agri-biodiversity legislation includes any of the strategies above. We find no comprehensive uptake of the landscape-scale perspective at the EU level, thereby suggesting that a powerful tool to overcome the CAP underperformance on biodiversity is being overlooked.

Original language	American English
Article number	846
Journal	Land
Volume	10
Issue number	8
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.3390/land10080846
State	Published - Aug 2021

Bibliographical note

Funding Information:
As per the CAP structure, the first pillar represents the core agricultural policy which provides direct payments for income support to European farmers and is entirely financed by the EU budget through the European Agricultural Guarantee Fund (EAGF). The allocation for 2021–2027 amounts to 258.6 billion Euro. Direct payments are mostly decoupled from production and are conditional on compliance with environmental requirements. The second pillar for Rural Development Policy is co-funded by the EU budget—the European Agricultural Fund for Rural Development (EAFRD), with an allocation of 85.3 billion Euro—and national and regional funds. Interventions aiming specifically at the protection and enhancement of biodiversity are mainly provided under this second pillar6

Publisher Copyright:
© 2021 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland.

Keywords

EU common agricultural policy
Ecosystem services
Functional agri-biodiversity
Landscape scale
Spatial scale mismatch

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10.3390/land10080846

Cite this

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title = "Spatial scale mismatches in the eu agri-biodiversity conservation policy. The case for a shift to landscape-scale design",

abstract = "Agriculture is a major driver of the ongoing biodiversity decline, demanding an urgent transition towards a system that reconciles productivity and profitability with nature conservation; however, where public policies promote such transitions are in place, their design often poorly fits the relevant biogeophysical systems, decreasing the policies{\textquoteright} expected effectiveness. Spatial scale mismatches are a primary example in this regard. The literature reviewed in this paper, drawing from both ecology and policy studies, suggests to foster policy implementation at the landscape scale, where most functional ecological processes—and the delivery of related ecosystem services—occur on farmland. Two strategies are identified for coordinating policy implementation at the landscape scale: the promotion of farmers{\textquoteright} collective action and the partition of space on an ecologically sound basis through spatial planning. As the new European Union Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) post-2023 is currently being defined, we assess if and how the draft agri-biodiversity legislation includes any of the strategies above. We find no comprehensive uptake of the landscape-scale perspective at the EU level, thereby suggesting that a powerful tool to overcome the CAP underperformance on biodiversity is being overlooked.",

keywords = "EU common agricultural policy, Ecosystem services, Functional agri-biodiversity, Landscape scale, Spatial scale mismatch",

author = "Falco, {Francesca L.} and Eran Feitelson and Tamar Dayan",

note = "Funding Information: As per the CAP structure, the first pillar represents the core agricultural policy which provides direct payments for income support to European farmers and is entirely financed by the EU budget through the European Agricultural Guarantee Fund (EAGF). The allocation for 2021–2027 amounts to 258.6 billion Euro. Direct payments are mostly decoupled from production and are conditional on compliance with environmental requirements. The second pillar for Rural Development Policy is co-funded by the EU budget—the European Agricultural Fund for Rural Development (EAFRD), with an allocation of 85.3 billion Euro—and national and regional funds. Interventions aiming specifically at the protection and enhancement of biodiversity are mainly provided under this second pillar6 Publisher Copyright: {\textcopyright} 2021 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland.",

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N1 - Funding Information: As per the CAP structure, the first pillar represents the core agricultural policy which provides direct payments for income support to European farmers and is entirely financed by the EU budget through the European Agricultural Guarantee Fund (EAGF). The allocation for 2021–2027 amounts to 258.6 billion Euro. Direct payments are mostly decoupled from production and are conditional on compliance with environmental requirements. The second pillar for Rural Development Policy is co-funded by the EU budget—the European Agricultural Fund for Rural Development (EAFRD), with an allocation of 85.3 billion Euro—and national and regional funds. Interventions aiming specifically at the protection and enhancement of biodiversity are mainly provided under this second pillar6 Publisher Copyright: © 2021 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland.

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N2 - Agriculture is a major driver of the ongoing biodiversity decline, demanding an urgent transition towards a system that reconciles productivity and profitability with nature conservation; however, where public policies promote such transitions are in place, their design often poorly fits the relevant biogeophysical systems, decreasing the policies’ expected effectiveness. Spatial scale mismatches are a primary example in this regard. The literature reviewed in this paper, drawing from both ecology and policy studies, suggests to foster policy implementation at the landscape scale, where most functional ecological processes—and the delivery of related ecosystem services—occur on farmland. Two strategies are identified for coordinating policy implementation at the landscape scale: the promotion of farmers’ collective action and the partition of space on an ecologically sound basis through spatial planning. As the new European Union Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) post-2023 is currently being defined, we assess if and how the draft agri-biodiversity legislation includes any of the strategies above. We find no comprehensive uptake of the landscape-scale perspective at the EU level, thereby suggesting that a powerful tool to overcome the CAP underperformance on biodiversity is being overlooked.

AB - Agriculture is a major driver of the ongoing biodiversity decline, demanding an urgent transition towards a system that reconciles productivity and profitability with nature conservation; however, where public policies promote such transitions are in place, their design often poorly fits the relevant biogeophysical systems, decreasing the policies’ expected effectiveness. Spatial scale mismatches are a primary example in this regard. The literature reviewed in this paper, drawing from both ecology and policy studies, suggests to foster policy implementation at the landscape scale, where most functional ecological processes—and the delivery of related ecosystem services—occur on farmland. Two strategies are identified for coordinating policy implementation at the landscape scale: the promotion of farmers’ collective action and the partition of space on an ecologically sound basis through spatial planning. As the new European Union Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) post-2023 is currently being defined, we assess if and how the draft agri-biodiversity legislation includes any of the strategies above. We find no comprehensive uptake of the landscape-scale perspective at the EU level, thereby suggesting that a powerful tool to overcome the CAP underperformance on biodiversity is being overlooked.

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KW - Landscape scale

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Spatial scale mismatches in the eu agri-biodiversity conservation policy. The case for a shift to landscape-scale design

Abstract

Bibliographical note

Keywords

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