Abstract
AbstractMaximizing the area under biodiversity‐related conservation measures is a main target of the European Union (EU) Biodiversity Strategy to 2020. We analyzed whether agrienvironmental schemes (AES) within EU common agricultural policy, special protected areas for birds (SPAs), and Annex I designation within EU Birds Directive had an effect on bird population changes using monitoring data from 39 farmland bird species from 1981 to 2012 at EU scale. Populations of resident and short‐distance migrants were larger with increasing SPAs and AES coverage, while Annex I species had higher population growth rates with increasing SPAs, indicating that SPAs may contribute to the protection of mainly target species and species spending most of their life cycle in the EU. Because farmland birds are in decline and the negative relationship of agricultural intensification with their population growth rates was evident during the implementation of AES and SPAs, EU policies seem to generally attenuate the declines of farmland bird populations, but not to reverse them.
Highlights
Several international actions have taken place to stop the loss of biodiversity, including international agreements (i.e., Biological Diversity’s 2010 target; Balmford et al 2005) and conservation policies (i.e., Directive 2009/147/EC 2009)
More details on the methods used in the field and the calculation of population indices and their standard errors can be found in Gregory et al (2005), van Strien et al (2001), and in the European Bird Census Council (EBCC) website
The decrease of European farmland bird species over the last decades has been attributed to an increase in agricultural intensification (Donald et al 2001, 2006)
Summary
Several international actions have taken place to stop the loss of biodiversity, including international agreements (i.e., Biological Diversity’s 2010 target; Balmford et al 2005) and conservation policies (i.e., Directive 2009/147/EC 2009). Birds associated with farmland habitats have experienced severe declines, as shown by a more than 50% drop on the European Union (EU) farmland bird indicator since 1980 (Gregory et al 2005; EBCC Indicators 2015). This decline of farmland bird populations has been mainly attributed to agricultural intensification favored by the European Common Agricultural Policy (CAP; Donald et al 2001, 2006; Szep et al 2012). Studies investigating the effect of AES on farmland biodiversity have involved only a subset of EU Member States and/or often assessed AES that have been implemented for a few years, and perhaps in consequence, they have shown contrasting results (Kleijn & Sutherland 2003; Donald et al 2006; Kleijn et al 2006; Breeuwer et al 2009; Dicks et al 2014)
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