30
A
new review bolsters the idea that,
to best conserve global biodiversity
while feeding a growing human
population, agriculture needs to
become more intensive rather than
more wildlife friendly.
The review, published in the Journal of
Zoology, looks at 2,500 species worldwide in
a range of agricultural landscapes and finds
that most species fare better in ‘land sparing’
systems where agriculture is high-yield,
intensive and confined to a smaller area,New evidence suggests that wildlife benefits from
agriculture becoming more intensive, not less
Intensive farming
protects biodiversity
FROM THE BBC WILDLIFE ARCHIVE December 1991month back in 1991. Writer Bill Cater set out on a mission to discover tales of
parasites picked up on exotic expeditions. “Wildlife film-makers and tropical
biologists have an enviable life,” he begins. “On the other hand, they are working
among disease-bearing ticks, chiggers, botflies, sandflies, hookworms, leeches
and, by no means last or least, the dreaded candiru.” The candiru is 2.5cm-long
parasitic fish which is attracted to streams of urine... Look it up, if you dare.NEXT ISSUE
Rethink January. Exquisite
feathery hoar frosts, smart long-
tailed ducks visiting from the
Arctic and otherwordly pixie-
cup lichen. There’s still so much
to look forward to.rather than in ‘land sharing’ systems where
the farming itself is more wildlife-friendly
but needs more land to produce the same
amount of food.
The findings challenge the current push
for wildlife-friendly agriculture. “We’ve
paid billions for land sharing over the past
30 years in the form of agri-environment
schemes,” says the review’s author Andrew
Balmford of the University of Cambridge.
“Land sparing as a strategy makes sense
from a science-based perspective,” saysTim Benton, director of the Environment
and Society Programme at Chatham House.
However, he says an increase in intensive
farming would bring its own problems.
“Intensification creates spill-overs via
pollution, climate change and pesticide
drift, and the market creates incentives
to convert natural habitat into revenue-
generating agriculture.”
According to Joanna Lewis, director of
policy and strategy at the Soil Association,
the world needs less intensive agriculture,
not more: “Intensive farming has driven the
significant declines of wildlife that we’ve
seen over the last 50 years, so we have to
move towards a system where all lands are
managed in a way that restores nature.”
And that, she says, need not come at the
expense of biodiversity. “What makes that
possible is shifting towards more-sustainable
diets – less meat and less food waste.”
Balmford agrees that lifestyle changes
are essential. “But none of the numbers
I’ve seen suggest that those alone will get
you there. You have to do something about
yield,” he says. “You can’t have your cake
and eat it. We live on one planet. You can’t
have more land locked up for nature, more
nature on farmland and still feed yourselves.
It doesn’t work.” SBThe review’s author Andrew Balmford is
interested in how conservation can be
reconciled with other activitiesFarmland makes
up over 70 per
cent of Britain’s
total land areaFARMLAND:^ PAUL^ HARRIS/^2020 VISION/NPL