Land-sharing Approach Research Articles

Arthropod removal in wheat fields enhanced yield regardless of natural habitat patch proximity

Natural habitat patches can be essential in conserving biodiversity and providing ecosystem services for agroecological systems. However, adopting a land-sharing approach requires a deep understanding of the agricultural costs and benefits associated with the existence of adjacent natural habitat patches. We used 17 paired natural habitat patch-wheat field replicates to test the effects of distance from the natural patches and removal of ground-dwelling arthropods from the field on the wheat yield. Removing ground-dwelling arthropods increased wheat yield. Community compositions of ground-dwelling arthropods in the natural habitat patches and wheat fields varied significantly, irrespective of the distance from the natural patch. In April and May, near the wheat harvest, predator abundance was higher in the natural habitat patches than in the wheat fields, whereas the abundance of potential pests was much higher in the wheat fields. This reduced predator-pest ratio in the wheat fields may explain why removing ground-dwelling arthropods increased wheat yield. Future research should focus on developing effective methods for managing ground-dwelling and vertical wheat pest populations while preserving their natural enemies' integrity within the fields and adjacent natural habitat patches.

“Land-sparing benefits biodiversity while land-sharing benefits ecosystem services”: Stakeholders’ perspectives on biodiversity conservation strategies in boreal forests

Biodiversity conservation and economic profit from forests can be combined by various land-sparing and land-sharing approaches. Using a semi-structured survey, we evaluated support for scenarios representing contrasting conservation strategies in a managed boreal forest landscape. Land-sparing approaches were supported by the conservation organisation, regional administrations and the forest company, mainly motivated by the benefit for biodiversity based on ecological theory. Land-sharing approaches were supported by one recreational organisation, some municipalities and the forest owners’ association, mainly motivated by the delivery of ecosystem services. Stakeholder groups using certain ecosystem services had motivations that we related to an anthropocentric mindset, while others focused more on species conservation, which can be related both to an anthropocentric or an ecocentric mindsets. Forest conservation planning should consider stakeholders’ preferences to handle land-use conflicts. Since reaching consensus among multiple stakeholders seems unfeasible, a combination of land-sparing and land-sharing approaches is probably the best compromise.

Livelihood Capitals and Opportunity Cost for Grazing Areas' Restoration: A Sustainable Intensification Strategy in the Ecuadorian Amazon.

Land use change in pastures is considered one of the leading drivers of tropical deforestation in the Ecuadorian Amazon Region (EAR). To halt and reverse this process, it is necessary to understand, among other factors, the local livelihoods, income from grazing area and the appropriate options to foster sustainable production, incorporating the land-sparing and land-sharing approach. This work was conducted using 167 household surveys along an altitudinal gradient within the buffer and transition zone of the Sumaco Biosphere Reserve (SBR) in the EAR. The results of a comparative analysis of the main capital variables (human, social, natural, financial, and physical), and the opportunity cost of grazing area assessment provides the following key findings: (a) the concepts of land sparing and land sharing should be considered as complementary local strategies, including household livelihoods and the opportunity cost of the grazing area; (b) we should encourage markets with differentiated restoration rights, based on households engaged in low grazing areas' opportunity costs, and making less impact on capitals' livelihood a key element of economic and conservation initiatives; and (c) sectoral policy implications, including moderate intensification and technological improvements to strengthen the pastureland-sparing and -sharing approach, are discussed.

Farming with Alternative Pollinators benefits pollinators, natural enemies, and yields, and offers transformative change to agriculture

Low- and middle-income countries cannot afford reward-based land sparing for wildflower strips to combat pollinator decline. Two small-grant projects assessed, if an opportunity-cost saving land-sharing approach, Farming with Alternative Pollinators, can provide a method-inherent incentive to motivate farmers to protect pollinators without external rewards. The first large-scale Farming-with-Alternative-Pollinators project used seven main field crops in 233 farmer fields of four agro-ecosystems (adequate rainfall, semi-arid, mountainous and oasis) in Morocco. Here we show results: higher diversity and abundance of wild pollinators and lower pest abundance in enhanced fields than in monocultural control fields; the average net-income increase per surface is 121%. The higher income is a performance-related incentive to enhance habitats. The income increase for farmers is significant and the increase in food production is substantial. Higher productivity per surface can reduce pressure on (semi)-natural landscapes which are increasingly used for agriculture. Land-use change additionally endangers biodiversity and pollinators, whereas this new pollinator-protection approach has potential for transformative change in agriculture.

Spatial variation in population-density of snow leopards in a multiple use landscape in Spiti Valley, Trans-Himalaya.

The endangered snow leopard Panthera uncia occurs in human use landscapes in the mountains of South and Central Asia. Conservationists generally agree that snow leopards must be conserved through a land-sharing approach, rather than land-sparing in the form of strictly protected areas. Effective conservation through land-sharing requires a good understanding of how snow leopards respond to human use of the landscape. Snow leopard density is expected to show spatial variation within a landscape because of variation in the intensity of human use and the quality of habitat. However, snow leopards have been difficult to enumerate and monitor. Variation in the density of snow leopards remains undocumented, and the impact of human use on their populations is poorly understood. We examined spatial variation in snow leopard density in Spiti Valley, an important snow leopard landscape in India, via spatially explicit capture-recapture analysis of camera trap data. We camera trapped an area encompassing a minimum convex polygon of 953 km2. Our best model estimated an overall density of 0.5 (95% CI: 0.31–0.82) mature snow leopards per 100 km2. Using AIC, our best model showed the density of snow leopards to depend on estimated wild prey density, movement about activity centres to depend on altitude, and the expected number of encounters at the activity centre to depend on topography. Models that also used livestock biomass as a density covariate ranked second, but the effect of livestock was weak. Our results highlight the importance of maintaining high density pockets of wild prey populations in multiple-use landscapes to enhance snow leopard conservation.

The impacts of agricultural and urban land-use changes on plant and bird biodiversity in Costa Rica (1986–2014)

Costa Rica is recognized worldwide for its nature conservation policy following the traditional land-sparing approach. However, concerns have been raised about the opposite trends of the agricultural land cover changes driven by the option to expand old and new export crops after the country’s external debt crisis of the 1980s. We study what happened during the last 20 years by applying landscape ecology metrics to the REDD+ land cover maps of 1986, 2001, and 2014, and statistically testing these indicators with the locations of species richness of plants and birds recorded by INBio. Our results confirm that deforestation has been reversed and most of the biodiversity considered is housed in forestland, but also that the expansion of export monocultures and urban sprawl have fragmented and isolated these tropical forests. Ecological connectivity values decreased 13% across the territory, all crops are negatively correlated with bird and plant locations, and the metropolitan expansion caused a detrimental impact on coffee agroforestry. All these outcomes are consistent with the growing deficit of the Costa Rican physical trade balance due to a faster increase of tropical exports than the growing imports of staple food, with a loss of soil organic matter filled by high doses of agrochemicals imported. Overcoming these environmental problems require a new land-sharing approach to nature conservation aimed at improving ecological connectivity through an agroecology approach combined with land-use planning to preserve the remaining green belt of the shade coffee plantations as a buffer green infrastructure in the metropolitan area.

A strategy for wildlife management in depopulating rural areas of Japan.

Former ranges of wild animals have been reestablished in many developed countries. However, this reestablishment has led to increasing human-wildlife conflict in agroforest ecosystems. In Japan, human-wildlife conflict, such as crop raiding by and ecological impacts of wild ungulates and primates, is a serious problem in depopulated rural areas due to these animal range expansions and increased abundances. Japan's human population is predicted to decline by 24% by 2050, and approximately 20% of agricultural settlements will become completely depopulated. In this scenario, anthropogenic pressures on wildlife (e.g., hunting and habitat alteration) will continue to decrease and human-wildlife conflict will increase due to increasing wildlife recovery. Japan's local governments plan to slow range recovery, prevent species reestablishment, or remove recolonizing large mammals through lethal control. This strategy, however, is not cost-effective, and workforce shortages in depopulated communities make it infeasible. Moreover, the suppression of wildlife prevents the recovery of ecological functions and thus would degrade regional biodiversity. The declining pressure on wildlife that accompanies human depopulation will prevent the restoration of any past states of human-wildlife interaction. We suggest human-used areas in rural landscapes be aggregated in compact cities and that in transition zones between human settlements and depopulated lands that land-sharing approaches be applied. Concentrating management efforts in compact cities may effectively decrease human-wildlife conflict, rather than intensifying human pressures. Reforestation of depopulated lands may lead to recovery of wildlife habitats, their ecosystem functions, and regional biodiversity due to minimization of negative anthropogenic effects (land-sparing approach). Balancing resolution of human-wildlife conflict and ecological rewilding could become a new, challenging task for regional wildlife managers.

Reconciling farming and wild nature: Integrating human-wildlife coexistence into the land-sharing and land-sparing framework.

Land has traditionally been spared to protect biodiversity; however, this approach has not succeeded by itself and requires a complementary strategy in human-dominated landscapes: land-sharing. Human-wildlife conflicts are rampant in a land-sharing context where wildlife co-occur with crops or livestock, but whose resulting interactions adversely affect the wellbeing of land owners, ultimately impeding coexistence. Therefore, true land-sharing only works if coexistence is also considered an end goal. We reviewed the literature on land-sharing and found that conflicts have not yet found their way into the land-sharing/sparing framework, with wildlife and humans co-occurring without coexisting in a dynamic process. To successfully implement a land-sharing approach, we must first acknowledge our failure to integrate the body of work on human-wildlife conflicts into the framework and work to implement multidisciplinary approaches from the ecological, economic, and sociological sciences to overcome and prevent conflicts. We suggest the use of Conflict Transformation by means of the Levels of Conflict Model to perceive both visible and deep-rooted causes of conflicts as opportunities to create problem-solving dynamics in affected socio-ecological landscapes. Reconciling farming and nature is possible by aiming for a transition to landscapes that truly share space by virtue of coexistence.

Woodlots, wetlands or wheat fields? Agri-environmental land allocation preferences of stakeholder organisations in England and Ontario

Society’s increasing demands for a multitude of products and services are putting pressure on a finite land base, resulting in potential competition between agricultural and environmental interests. Stakeholder organisations wield considerable power in determining land allocation and the pursuit of different land-use objectives. Through the use of an inductive, qualitative methodology this study analyses the agri-environmental land-use preferences of organisational level actors operating in two comparable cases: England, UK and Ontario, Canada. The use of a comparative approach allowed for the illumination of differences and similarities within the preferences of stakeholders from like jurisdictions, which may not be evident from the analysis of a single case. In each case, semi-structured interviews, coupled with a photo-elicitation exercise, were used to explore preferences relating to agri-environmental integration (land-sharing) or separation (land-sparing). We found that the preferences of stakeholder organisations are more similar than might be expected with actors from both cases generally preferring a land-sharing approach in principle. However, a deeper look at stakeholder preferences provides a series of obstacles for achieving such a landscape model including differing views on: (1) the interpretation of integration and separation in practice, (2) conversion of land into agricultural production, (3) environmental restoration of arable land, (4) ownership of farmland, and (5) public access to nature on private farmland. The research uncovers what representatives from key organisational stakeholders see as their preferred solution for reconciling competing land-use objectives and thereby sheds light on the contextual suitability of land sparing/sharing expanding beyond production/biodiversity optimisation into social considerations.

The importance of fine-scale breeding site selection patterns under a landscape-sharing approach for wolf conservation

For large carnivores persisting in human-dominated landscapes, conservation planning is often hindered by the large spatial requirements of these species, availability of protected areas, and human land uses. Protected areas are usually too small to support viable populations, and scattered across a human land-use matrix. Therefore, large carnivore conservation should be planned at large spatial scales under a land-sharing approach (allowing the coexistence between large carnivores and people in the same landscape), which means increasing the focus on the human-dominated matrix. Most of the critical factors determining large carnivore persistence (i.e., those related to food availability and vulnerability to humans) interact synergistically in space and time during the breeding season. Here, using as a case study a wolf population in NW Iberia, we studied fine-scale breeding site selection patterns (1 and 9 km2) in relation to human pressure, and the availability of food and refuge. The selection of wolf breeding sites in this human-dominated landscape was not determined by potential availability of prey biomass in the immediate vicinity (1 km2). However, wolves selected breeding sites with high availability of refuge (concealing vegetation), and low human accessibility and activity levels. Paved roads showed the highest proportion of independent contribution to explaining breeding site selection patterns (negative influence), being followed by refuge availability (positive influence) and the remoteness of breeding sites in relation to the surrounding spatial context (positive influence). Refuge availability, even at very small spatial scales taking into account the spatial requirements of wolves, may compensate for moderate levels of human activities in the vicinity of breeding sites. The strength of breeding selection patterns varied along a hierarchical process at different spatial scales. Under a landscape-sharing approach, integrating key processes observed in the human-dominated matrix, such as breeding site selection patterns, into landscape planning is of paramount importance for carnivore conservation. By temporally restricting human use on breeding sites and small portions of surrounding lands (~ 1 km2), and by maintaining several small refuge areas interspersed within the human-dominated matrix, we could favor wolf persistence without reducing land availability for other uses, improving the conditions for coexistence between wolves and humans.

Sparing or sharing? Differing approaches to managing agricultural and environmental spaces in England and Ontario

The ability to balance agricultural production and environmental conservation in the face of increasing demand for food, fuel and fibre poses a major challenge for governments around the world. This challenge is explored in two areas of comparison: Ontario, Canada and England, UK in order to understand how each has balanced agriculture and environment in its land use policies. England and Ontario share similarities that suggest lessons and instruments may be transferrable to achieve similar land use objectives. Through the use of a thematic analysis of policy documentation, from each case study area, themes are identified demonstrating differences in approaches, and underlying policy preferences, associated with balancing agriculture and the environment. Specifically, results suggest that policymakers in Ontario hold a preference for land-sparing and leanings towards the productivist paradigm, whereas the land-sharing approach coupled with evidence of post-productivism is more common in England. The structural similarities of these cases provides insights into less tangible aspects of either context, such as policymaker preferences, where different approaches have emerged from a similar foundation. Moreover, as England transitions out of the EU, it may draw on the experiences of other jurisdictions in the design of a new suite of agri-environmental policies, with Ontario's approach providing one alternative. Overall, this paper contributes to our understanding of the manifestation of land-sparing/sharing and productivism/post-productivism in real world policy contexts and the relationship between both sets of concepts.

Is crop yield related to weed species diversity and biomass in coconut and banana fields of northeastern Brazil?

The ability to accommodate crop production for an ever-growing human population and achieve conservation of rapidly declining biodiversity remains a challenging task worldwide. In agroecosystems, weed diversity and biomass are frequently assumed to be negatively related to crop yield and biomass. However, positive effects of weed species (pollinator and parasitoid attraction) and different resource acquisition strategies may reduce the competitive character of weeds—a potential that can be exploited within land-sharing approaches (i.e., biodiversity conservation and agriculture on the same site). This study aimed at analyzing the relationships of weed diversity and biomass to crop yield and biomass in coconut and banana fields within an irrigation farming scheme established in former Caatinga seasonal dry forest ecosystems around the Itaparica Reservoir, Pernambuco, Brazil. Within each of 21 selected crop fields, we collected weed diversity and biomass data in the fields’ center and edge along with general information on crop yield and the use of fertilizers and other agrochemical inputs. We found no evidence for a negative relationship of crop yield or biomass and weed diversity. On the contrary, crop yield and weed alpha diversity were significantly positively correlated (Shannon and Simpson indices, evenness). In contrast, weed biomass showed a significant negative correlation to crop yield. The use of organic fertilizer had a significant positive effect on crop yield, whereas no impact of herbicides or insecticides was detected. In addition, the field edge provided habitat for more weed species than the field center. Overall, our data show that in perennial tropical crop fields high yield is not opposed to high weed diversity. Moreover, the data suggest that organic farming in the area will likely not lead to yield losses. Nevertheless, the related weed assemblages inhabited only a few typical species of the native dry forest vegetation which makes their contribution to biodiversity conservation at the landscape scale debatable.

Effects of rubber cultivation on biodiversity in the Mekong Region.

Abstract In the Mekong Region, the expansion of rubber plantations is a major threat to the remaining natural forests and has led to a considerable degradation of biodiversity. The shift from traditional agriculture to rubber cultivation additionally reduced landscape and agricultural system diversity and with this, the availability of potentially useful habitat types for species originating from natural forest. In most cases, monoculture rubber plantations showed to harbour less than half of the species richness in various plant and animal groups compared with natural forest, and often it was found or being assumed that many of these species are unable to exist permanently in rubber plantations. There is clear evidence that the existence natural forest area is essential for the conservation of large portions of native forest species in rubber-dominated landscapes. Alteration of rubber monoculture land use can only contribute effectively to species conservation if natural forest plots remain. Furthermore, suggested restoration concepts such as the conversion of rubber plantations into forest on marginal sites and land-sharing approaches are currently only vaguely described, and their contribution to the conservation of native forest species remains uncertain. In addition, modalities of stakeholder involvement, economic compensation and ecologically reasonable implementation of such measures are still unexplained. As an ecologically reasonable and economically feasible method to improve species diversity in rubber monoculture plantations, we suggest the promotion of natural undergrowth vegetation to enlarge suitable habitat structures in connection with natural forest. This can be reached through the cease of weeding and herbicide application and potentially through the cultivation of useful wild plants.

Conserving tropical tree diversity and forest structure: the value of small rainforest patches in moderately-managed landscapes.

Rainforests are undergoing severe deforestation and fragmentation worldwide. A huge amount of small forest patches are being created, but their value in conserving biodiversity and forest structure is still controversial. Here, we demonstrate that in a species-rich and moderately-managed Mexican tropical landscape small rainforest patches (<100 ha) can be highly valuable for the conservation of tree diversity and forest structure. These patches showed diverse communities of native plants, including endangered species, and a new record for the country. Although the number of logged trees increased in smaller patches, patch size was a poor indicator of basal area, stem density, number of species, genera and families, and community evenness. Cumulative species-area curves indicated that all patches had a similar contribution to the regional species diversity. This idea also was supported by the fact that patches strongly differed in floristic composition (high β-diversity), independently of patch size. Thus, in agreement with the land-sharing approach, our findings support that small forest patches in moderately-managed landscapes should be included in conservation initiatives to maintain landscape heterogeneity, species diversity, and ecosystem services.