Departamento de Ciencia Animal, Centro de Investigación y Tecnología Agroalimentaria de Aragón (CITA), Zaragoza, Spain; Instituto Agroalimentario de Aragón - IA2 (CITA-Universidad de Zaragoza), Zaragoza, Spain.
Faculty of Landscape and Society, Norwegian University of Life Sciences, P.O. Box 5003, Ås, N-1432, Norway; Norwegian Institute for Nature Research (NINA), Sognsveien 68, 0855, Oslo, 0349, Norway.
J Environ Manage. 2022 Aug 15;316:115255. doi: 10.1016/j.jenvman.2022.115255. Epub 2022 May 13.
Agri-environmental policies in Europe are failing to sufficiently address ongoing environmental degradation, biodiversity decline, climate impacts, and societal demands for sustainability. To reverse this, policymakers, practitioners, and farmers need better guidance on which specific agricultural practice/s should be promoted and how to adapt current practices to reach the desired objectives. Here we use social valuation tools to elucidate the relationship between agricultural practices and the provision of key ecosystem services in mountains, including maintenance of scenery from agricultural landscapes, conservation of biodiversity, regulation of climate change through carbon sequestration, production of local quality products, maintenance of soil fertility, and prevention of forest wildfires. We use as case studies two contrasting but representative mountain agroecosystems in the Mediterranean and Nordic regions of Europe. We analyze the best agricultural practices in both agroecosystems to reach the targeted environmental outcomes under three plausible policy scenarios. We find significant differences in the average contribution of agricultural practices to ecosystem services provision, which suggest the need for regionalizing the research efforts and, consequently, the design of agri-environmental policies. However, we also identify practices for ecosystem service delivery across policy scenarios and agroecosystems. Among these, grazing and silviculture practices such as extending the grazing period, grazing in semi-natural habitats, grazing in remote and abandoned areas, adapting stocking rate to the carrying capacity, and moving flocks seasonally, stand out for their relevance in all policy scenarios. These results highlight the potential of adequate grazing and silviculture practices to deliver bundles of ecosystem services. Our study provides guidance to design agri-environmental policies in Europe that focus on rewarding farmers for their sustainable management of natural resources, climate change mitigation and adaption and biodiversity conservation.
欧洲的农业环境政策未能充分解决持续的环境退化、生物多样性减少、气候影响以及社会对可持续性的需求。为了扭转这种局面，政策制定者、从业者和农民需要更好的指导，了解应推广哪些具体的农业实践以及如何调整当前实践以实现预期目标。在这里，我们使用社会价值评估工具来阐明农业实践与山区关键生态系统服务之间的关系，包括从农业景观中维护风景、保护生物多样性、通过碳固存调节气候变化、生产当地优质产品、保持土壤肥力和预防森林野火。我们以欧洲地中海和北欧地区的两个具有代表性的山地农业生态系统为例进行研究。我们分析了这两个农业生态系统中的最佳农业实践，以在三种可能的政策情景下实现目标环境结果。我们发现农业实践对生态系统服务提供的平均贡献存在显著差异，这表明需要对研究工作进行区域化，并相应地设计农业环境政策。然而，我们也确定了在不同政策情景和农业生态系统中提供生态系统服务的实践。在这些实践中，放牧和森林管理实践，如延长放牧期、在半自然栖息地放牧、在偏远和废弃地区放牧、根据承载能力调整牲畜数量以及季节性移动羊群，因其在所有政策情景中的相关性而脱颖而出。这些结果突出了适当的放牧和森林管理实践在提供生态系统服务方面的潜力。本研究为设计欧洲农业环境政策提供了指导，这些政策侧重于奖励农民对自然资源的可持续管理、气候变化缓解和适应以及生物多样性保护。
