Abstract

AbstractMajor conservation efforts in human‐dominated systems, such as farmland, have focused on the establishment of subsidies and compensation promoting low‐impact management practices to reverse the impacts of conservation threats in the short term (reactive approaches). In this study, we discuss how a different way of framing conservation policy (proactive approaches) could lead to fundamentally different long‐term conservation outcomes. We define proactive approaches as those not necessarily including measures directly addressing the threats affecting biodiversity, but promoting transitions from current scenarios in which species are threatened to new states in which the threat is no longer present. We illustrate reactive and proactive approaches using as a case study two contrasting conservation frameworks for a vulnerable farmland bird, the Montagu's harrier (Circus pygargus) in northeastern Spain. This example shows that reactive approaches can lead to “conservation traps,” which we defined as situations where the application of biologically focused actions in response to conservation problems results in an unsustainable need to perpetuate the implementation of those actions. Our aim is to offer a fresh perspective on biodiversity conservation in human‐dominated systems and to stimulate alternative, more holistic approaches in conservation promoting transitions to new states not requiring long‐term active and costly conservation action.

Highlights

  • Human activities have caused large-scale transformations to ecosystems, with important impacts on biodiversity and the services these systems provide (MA 2005). In response to such transformations, large-scale conservation efforts have been deployed to develop strategies to halt and reverse current biodiversity loss trends. The cornerstone of these strategies has been founded in the implementation of a “preservation approach,” based on the premise that biodiversity values can be maintained in protected areas with strict regulation of human activities (Margules & Pressey 2000; Bruner 2001)

  • There is broad consensus that conservation strategies should reconcile the maintenance of biodiversity values with socioeconomic development in such systems

  • Our aim is to offer a fresh perspective on biodiversity conservation in farming landscapes, and to stimulate alternative, more holistic approaches in conservation

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Summary

POLICY PERSPECTIVE

Keywords Cost-efficiency; farmland biodiversity; financial payments; long-term conservation outcomes; Montagu’s harrier; socioecological systems; steppe birds

Introduction
Conservation strategies and conservation traps
Proactive conservation approaches as alternatives
In search for new instruments
Findings
Supporting Information
Full Text
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