Centro de Investigação em Biodiversidade e Recursos Genéticos (CIBIO), Campus Agrário de Vairão, 4485-661 Vairão, Portugal; Alterra, Wageningen University and Research Centre, P.O. Box 47, 6700 AA Wageningen, The Netherlands.
Instituto de Ciências Agrárias e Ambientais Mediterrânicas, Pólo da Mitra, Apartado 94, Évora, Portugal; Instituto Politécnico de Viana do Castelo - Escola Superior Agrária, Viana do Castelo, Portugal.
J Environ Manage. 2014 Oct 1;143:140-50. doi: 10.1016/j.jenvman.2014.04.029. Epub 2014 Jun 3.
The importance of low intensity farming for the conservation of biodiversity throughout Europe was acknowledged early in the 1990s when the concept of 'High Nature Value farmlands' (HNVf) was devised. HNVf has subsequently been given high priority within the EU Rural Development Programme. This puts a requirement on each EU Member State not only to identify the extent and condition of HNVf within their borders but also to track trends in HNVf over time. However, the diversity of rural landscapes across the EU, the scarcity of (adequate) datasets on biodiversity, land cover and land use, and the lack of a common methodology for HNVf mapping currently represent obstacles to the implementation of the HNVf concept across Europe. This manuscript provides an overview of the characteristics of HNVf across Europe together with a description of the development of the HNVf concept. Current methodological approaches for the identification and mapping of HNVf across EU-27 and Switzerland are then reviewed, the main limitations of these approaches highlighted and recommendations made as to how the identification, mapping and reporting of HNVf state and trends across Europe can potentially be improved and harmonised. In particular, we propose a new framework that is built on the need for strategic HNVf monitoring based on a hierarchical, bottom-up structure of assessment units, coincident with the EU levels of political decision and devised indicators, and which is linked strongly to a collaborative European network that can provide the integration and exchange of data from different sources and scales under common standards. Such an approach is essential if the scale of the issues facing HNVf landscapes are to be identified and monitored properly at the European level. This would then allow relevant agri-environmental measures to be developed, implemented and evaluated at the scale(s) required to maintain the habitats and species of high nature conservation value that are intimately associated with those landscapes.
早在 20 世纪 90 年代初，当“高自然价值农田”（High Nature Value farmlands，HNVf）的概念被提出时，人们就认识到低强度农业对整个欧洲生物多样性保护的重要性。此后，HNVf 在欧盟农村发展计划中被赋予了高度优先地位。这就要求每个欧盟成员国不仅要确定其境内 HNVf 的范围和状况，还要跟踪 HNVf 的时间趋势。然而，欧盟各地农村景观的多样性、生物多样性、土地覆盖和土地利用的（充足）数据集的稀缺性，以及缺乏用于 HNVf 制图的通用方法，目前都成为了在整个欧洲实施 HNVf 概念的障碍。本文概述了欧洲各地 HNVf 的特征，并描述了 HNVf 概念的发展。然后，回顾了当前用于识别和绘制欧盟 27 国和瑞士 HNVf 的方法，突出了这些方法的主要局限性，并就如何改进和协调欧洲各地 HNVf 的识别、制图和报告提出了建议。特别是，我们提出了一个新框架，该框架基于基于评估单元的分层、自下而上结构的战略性 HNVf 监测的需求，这些评估单元与欧盟政治决策级别和设计指标一致，并与一个强大的合作欧洲网络紧密相连，该网络可以根据共同标准整合和交换来自不同来源和规模的数据。如果要在欧洲层面正确识别和监测 HNVf 景观所面临的问题的规模，就需要采取这种方法。这将允许在与这些景观密切相关的具有高保护价值的栖息地和物种所需的规模上制定、实施和评估相关的农业环境措施。
