Targeting for nature conservation in agricultural policy

Targeting for nature conserv5tion in agricultural policy

This paper explores the opportunities for integrating nature conservation and agricultural policy, and the need for targeting to ensure cost-effectiveness. Nature conservation objectives are stated and the impact of the modernization of farming on wildlife, that wildlife habitats become ‘peripheral’ to the farming system rather than ‘integral’, is described. The key need is for policies that reflect regional differences in wildlife and different qualities of habitats, that fit the farm systems present, and ensure that habitat creation occurs in the most appropriate places. These requirements are illustrated by reference to current policy mechanisms, and potential developments to achieve more effective targeting are discussed.

Sarah Webster is Head of Research Branch, Department of the Environment, Directorate of Rural Affairs, Tollgate House, Houlton Street, Bristol, BS2 9DJ, UK. Mark Felton is Environmental Audit Manager at English Nature, Northminster House, Peterborough, PEl IUA, UK. The views expressed here by the authors are their own.

The ideas presented in this paper owe much to the many discussions that we have had with colleagues both within NCC and English Nature and outside. Particular thanks are due to Pippa Merricks, Karen Goodwin, Rick Keymer and Rob Wolton (all of English Nature), Colin Galbraith and John Hopkins (Joint Nature Conservation Committee), Patrick Leonard and Enid Barron at the Department of the Environ- ment and Neville Lane and Peter White- head of MAFF.

‘R. Munton, ‘Agriculture and conservation: what room for compromise?‘, in A. Warren and F.B. Goldsmith, eds, Conservation in Perspective, John Wiley & Sons, Chiches- ter, UK, 1983.

continued on page 66

Sarah Webster and Mark Felton

Agriculture has the capacity to make significant impacts on nature conservation interests, particularly in countries such as the UK where agriculture is the most widespread land use, accounting for about 80% of the land. Such impacts may be positive or negative. Recent losses of wildlife habitat resulting from agricultural intensification have led to the realization that wildlife benefits are by no means an automatic by- product of farming practices. ’ Nature conservation is one of a range of non-market benefits for which positive policies and measures are needed. Farmers are seen as the natural custodians of the rural environment, yet the marketplace offers few rewards for custodianship. Therefore in recent years a new consensus has emerged between conservationists, farmers and government that, while farmers should continue to receive public support. this must be conditional on produc- ing environmental and social benefits.* Targeting is needed to ensure that environmental money is directed to the places where it can achieve the greatest environmental benefits. While this may increase the administrative costs of policies, undirected policies are likely to be less cost-effective and may even be damaging.

The General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) negotiations and reform of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) offer opportunities to redirect public expenditure and policies in agriculture to achieve conservation objectives. It is clear that this will not be simply a matter of redirecting the production-based support policies that have been applied over the last 30 years into environmental measures; there is an evident need to cut back on expenditure, and the UK is working for an outcome to the GATT round which would lead to significant reductions in overall support for agriculture.3 Part of the redirection of the budget planned under the present proposals for CAP reform will be away from price support and towards direct compensatory payments, while environmentally sensitive farming policies are contained within a separate suite of ‘agri-environment’ measures. Nevertheless we can expect to see real increases in financial support for the environment within agriculture, both through environmental conditions being applied to direct payments to farmers and through specific environmental schemes.4 There have already been substantial increases in expenditure on environmentally sensitive farming in the UK; the budget for Environmen- tally Sensitive Areas (ESAs) in England is set to rise from f13 million

0264-8377/93/010067-l 6 0 1993 Butterworth-Heinemann Ltd 67

Targeting for nature conservarion in agriculrurtzl polic):

continued from page 67 ‘A. Woods, J.P. Taylor, D.C. Hartley, S.D. Hudson and A.N. Lance, The Reform of the Common Agricultural Policy: New Opportunities for Wildlife and the Environ- ment, RSPB, Sandy, UK, 1988; J.P. Taylor and J.B. Dixon, Agriculture and the En- vironment: Towards Integration, RSPB, Sandy, UK, 1990; Nature Conservancy Council, ‘Nature conservation and agricultural change’, Focus on Nature Con- servation, No 25, NCC, Peterborough, UK, 1990; National Farmers Union, An En- vironmental Strategy, NFU, London, UK, 1991; Country Landowners Association, Working Party Report ‘Enterprise in the Rural Environment’: Environmental Land Management Services, CLA, London, UK, 1989; Royal Society for Nature Conserva- tion, Losing Ground: Vanishing Meadows: The Case ior Extending the ESA Principle, RSNC. Lincoln. UK, 1991; J. Gummer. Opening address to a conference on agri: cultural policy and the environment, in F.A. Miller, ed, Agricultural Policy and fhe En- vironment, Paper 24, Centre for Agricul- tural Strategy, Reading, UK, 1991; Coun- tryside Commission, incentives for a New Direction in Farming, CCP 262, Country- side Commission, Cheltenham. UK. 1989. 3Gummer, op tit, Ref 2. 4Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food. Our Farmina Future. MAFF Publica- tions, London, UK: 1991. 5Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, New Environmentally Sensitive Areas, MAFF News Release, MAFF, Lon- don, UK, 1991. ‘NCC, op tit, Ref 2. 7J.J. Hopkins, ‘Prospects for habitat creation’, Landscape Design, April 1989, pp 19-23. ‘0.R. Rackham, The History of the Coun- tryside, J.M. Dent, London, UK, 1986. ‘P.S. Lloyd and C.D. Pigott, ‘The influence of soil conditions on the course of succession on the chalk of southern England’, Journal of Ecology, Vol 55, 1967, pp 137- 146; P.J. Grubb and B.A. Key, ‘Clearance of scrub and re-establishment of chalk grassland on the Devil’s Dyke’, Nature in Cambridgeshire, Vol 18, 1975, pp 18-22. “‘Nature Conservancy Council, Nature Conservation in Great Britain, Nature Con- servancy Council, Shrewsbury, UK, 1984. “R M Fuller, ‘The changing extent and conservation interest of lowland grassland in England and Wales: a review of grassland surveys 1930-l 984’, Siological Con- servation, Vol 40, 1987, pp 281-300.

per year in 1991/92 to f64.5 million per year in 1994/95.5 This rebalanc- ing offers significant opportunities for improving the integration of nature conservation into agriculture policies. This article addresses ways of maximizing the effectiveness of this environmental support within

agriculture. In this paper, objectives for the nature conservation resource within

the farmed landscape are considered together with the requirements of policies to cater for four key elements of targeting. These are:

0 regional appropriateness; 0 quality appropriateness; 0 fit with farm systems;

0 optimal location of habitat creation and enhancement.

How best these needs might be met in the context of current policies and

potential developments is also discussed.

Objectives for the nature conservation resource within the farmed landscape

Stated in its broadest terms, the objective for nature conservation is to ensure that the wildlife communities characteristic of each region remain viable and distributed across their traditional ranges.h This embraces a number of subsidiary objectives:

0 to retain the diversity within, and differentiation between, regions or zones;

0 to provide for and, where possible, enhance the status of rare and vulnerable species;

0 to meet international responsibilities and obligations for nature conservation.

Although the high profile of many wildflower re-seeding projects has encouraged the politically appealing view that unimproved grasslands and other semi-natural habitats can be re-created easily once destroyed, this is not so. Grasslands, and other habitats valued by conservationists, are complex integrated systems that result from the ways in which organisms of all types have interacted with each other and with environmental factors, such as soil and climate, in a particular place over a long time.’ They may be re-treatable over a period of, perhaps, 150 years, but for practical purposes the loss of these habitats is irreversible.’ For example, many areas of chalk downland in south-east England that were ploughed during the Second World War have failed to form a typical chalk grassland turf decades later, while the invasion of grassland by hawthorn scrub can result in permanent increases in nitrate and phosphate in the soil, making the restoration of former grassland communities very difficult or impossible.”

Losses of semi-natural habitats in Great Britain since the 1940s have been significant. “’ In the case of lowland grassland and lowland fens, the area remaining is less than 5% of that present in the 1940s.” These irreplaceable habitats are now such a scarce resource that their conservation merits top priority in environmental policies for agriculture.

Britain’s remaining areas of semi-natural habitat support our most significant wildlife communities, and because losses to these habitats are generally irreversible it is important to give priority to conserving them. Building on this resource through habitat creation is a lower priority,

LAND USE POLICY January 1993

Targeting for nature conservation in agricultural policy

though in many cases necessary in order to secure and enhance habitats. This leads to the following principles:

l remaining areas of semi-natural habitat should be conserved, and where possible expanded;

0 other areas of good wildlife habitat should be conserved, and where possible enhanced;

0 new wildlife habitats should be created in areas of low or nil existing value for nature conservation;

0 targeted programmes for particular rare or threatened species should be prepared where general measures alone will not be effective;

0 the polluting effects of human activities on wildlife should be minimized. I2

The emphasis given to each of these principles will vary in different areas.

In 1942 a government report on land utilization in Britain saw farming as naturally compatible with nature conservation. For example, it stated that:

The landscape of England and Wales is a striking example of the interdepend- ence between the satisfaction of man’s material wants and the creation of beauty

The beauty and pattern of the countryside are the direct result of the cultivation of the soil and there is no antagonism between use and beauty. [paragraph 141 The countryside . must be farmed if it is to retain those features which give it distinctive charm and character . . . We consider that the land of Britain should be both useful and beautiful and that the two aims are in no sense incompatible. [paragraph 16]13

Many of our important habitat types are anthropogenic, and at that time most had an economic relevance, or it was not feasible to modify them for technological or economic reasons. Wildlife habitats were thus integral to the farming systems with which they had co-evolved. With changing economic and technological circumstances, modernization has meant that farm systems have become more intensive and specialized and less influenced by natural climatic and physical factors. This has resulted in the reduced economic significance of elements such as woodlands on farms; in the possibility of using areas that were previous- ly hard to intensify; and in a change in enterprise mix. As a consequ- ence, certain habitats have become ‘peripheral’ to the farm system and the habitat mosaic has become simplified. A rich wildlife resource is no longer automatically a joint product of the farming industry. This is true to a certain extent in all areas, but in some the tendency has gone further, particularly in mixed arable/livestock areas which have now become more specialist arable. Thus, farming systems can be arranged on a spectrum according to how far the wildlife resource has become peripheral to the farm economy. This factor varies both within and between regions and it has a significant effect on the approach to incorporating nature conservation into agricultural policy. The question of providing for wildlife must be addressed now, as it is no longer possible to assume that it will adapt to modern farming systems and

‘*NCC, op tit, Ref 2. 13Ministry of Works and Planning, Report

retain its full diversity. Making provision does not mean a reversion to

of the Committee on Land Utilisation in h’ t IS oric farming systems, but the incorporation of wildlife needs into

Rural Areas, Command 6376, HMSO, modern systems. London, 1942. The question remains, Why bother? It is clear that concern for the



14HMS0, This Common Inheritance, HMSO, London, 1990. 15D. Pearce, A. Markandya and E.B. Bar- bier, Blueprint for a Green Economy, Earthscan, London, 1989; Department of the Environment, Policy Appraisal and the Environment, HMSO, London, 1991. 16M. Sagoff, The Economy of the Earth, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK, 1988; C.H. Green and SM. Tunstall, ‘Is the economic valuation of environmental resources possible?‘, Journal of En- vironmenfal Management, Vol 33, 1991, pp 123-141; P. Lowe, J. Clark and G. Cox, ‘Reasonable creatures: rights and rationa- lities in valuing the countryside,’ paper oresented to the Rural Economv and Soci- ety Group conference, Costing- the Coun- trvside. York. UK. 1991: T.H. Stevens. J. Eoheverria, d.G. Glass, T. Hager and T.A. More, ‘Measuring the existence value of wildlife: what do cvm estimates really show?‘, Land Economics, Vol67,1991, pp 399-400. 17EEC Council Regulation 797185, Official Journal of the European Communities, L93/1, 1985.

70

environment including wildlife has grown through the 1970s and 1980s. This is reflected in growing membership of organizations such as the National Trust and Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB). The government also reflects this concern in policy commitment to sustainable development and the conservation of biodiversity.‘” The challenge is to ensure that these commitments are put into effect and to achieve the objectives efficiently. This article focuses on how agricultural policy can be adapted to make an effective and efficient contribu-

tion. There are a variety of techniques available for evaluating environ-

mental benefits, and these are being promoted by government. I5 The methods and the circumstances in which they are appropriate are the subject of an ongoing debate.16 The main problems concern the sources and formation of values, especially where moral and ethical considera- tions are involved.

In the light of these concerns, which centre on the problem of quantifying non-use values, it is doubtful whether valuation techniques have a significant role in establishing objectives for wildlife; the commitment to sustainability implies avoidance of irreversible damage to semi-natural habitats. However, economics and cost-benefit analysis clearly have a major part to play in identifying the optimal methods for achieving these objectives.

Regional appropriateness

Environmentally friendly farming policies need to recognize and maintain the differentiation between habitat types and wildlife communities in different regions. Different suites of prescriptions are necessary to sustain the wildlife on farms in different parts of the country. Clearly it would be inappropriate to offer a single ‘menu’, on a ‘pick and choose’ basis, both to farmers in areas where there is grazing marsh and to those on heather moorland. Even where a single habitat type, such as hay meadows or heather moorland, occurs in different places, the appropriate cutting dates and stocking rates will vary from place to place. It is important to stress that the objective should be to ensure that the wildlife characteristic of each region remains viable and distributed across its traditional range. Often areas in the North and West of Britain, which support more extensive semi-natural habitats, are seen to be more deserving of conservation measures than those in the South and East where habitats are smaller and more fragmented. However, these fragmented habitats sustain a different range of communities from the extensive areas in the uplands, and an environmentally sensitive agricultural policy should not seek to secure only one set of communities at the expense of the other. Even within a habitat type such as heather moorland, different communities are present in different regions of Britain (Figure 1). Thus the South-West supports characteristic heather communities that are quite different from those found in the main upland block, centred on the Pennines, and this biogeographic variation needs to be maintained.

The real challenge is how to achieve this regionalization. Existing mechanisms include the Hill Livestock Compensatory Allowances paid in Less Favoured Areas, which are defined according to the ‘severity of the permanent natural handicaps affecting farming’.” Such areas can include mountain areas in which farming is ‘necessary to protect the



Figure 1. Regional distribution of upland mire and heath communities in England and Wales.

Notes: These maps show the distribution of different vegetation communities recognized in the National Vegetation classification across the uplands of England and Wales: (A) principal mire immunities: f&5 S&pus cespi~osus-fan tetrafix wet heath; Ml7 &&pus ~spifosus-Edopborum vaginarum blanket mire: Ml8 Erica tefraiix-Sphagnum papitfosum raised and blanket mire; Ml 9 Caltuna vu/garis-~riop~o~m vaginafum blanket mire; M20 Eriophorum vaginarum blanket and raised mire; (B) principal heath communities: H4 Ulex ga/&Agrostis cur&ii heath; H8 CaNuna vulgaris Ulex gallii heath; H9 Caffuna vulgaris-Deschampsia ffexuosa heath; HlO CaNuna vu/gads-Erica cinerea heath; H12 Calluna vulgaris-Vaccinium myrfi//us heath. In each case the South-West peninsula supports different communities from the central Pennine block. Sources: D.B.A. Thompson, J.H. Marsden, A. Macdonald and CA. Galbraith, ‘Upland heaths in Great Britain: a review of international importance and objectives for nature conservation’, in Siological Conservation, National Heather Convention, special symposium edition (in press); J.S. Rodwell, ed, Bri03h flanf Communities, Volume 2: Mires and Heaths, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK. 1991.

countryside’.” In the future it is likely that such payments will be linked more closely with providing environmental benefits. I9 However, these broad zones cover a range of environmental and farming circumstances with different environmental needs. Therefore policies to bring about environmental benefits in these areas need to reflect this regional variation.

Environmentally Sensitive Areas (ESAs) provide a flexible mechanism that achieves regional appropriateness, albeit by designating relatively restricted and environmentally homogenous areas, beyond which lies a continuously varying and often more fragmented resource. Countryside Stewardship offers differentiated prescription suites for a range of landscape and habitat types.20 Areas in which this scheme has

lHEEC Council Directive 75/268/EEC, 0% been positively promoted have been chosen on a ‘best judgement’ basis.

ciaf Journal of the European Communifies, A comprehensive national scheme would necessitate a way of judging

L12111, 1975. the appropriate balance of effort between zones and the emphasis on “MAFF, op tit, Ref 4. *‘Countryside Commission, Countryside

different habitats within zones. This judgement would need to be based

Stewardship: An Outline, CCP 346, Coun- on the importance of the habitats or landscape types for the character of

tryside Commission, Cheltenham, UK, the zone, and on the degree of threat or perceived rate of adverse 19%. change. The EC proposal for environmental programmes within agricul-

LAND USE POLICY January 1993 71

Targeting for nature conservation in agricultural poliq

“EEC COM(91)415 final, Otiicial Journal of fhe’ European Communities, C300/7, 1991. %.G.H. Bunce, C.J. Barr and H.A. Whit- taker, Land C/asses in Greaf Britain: Pre- liminary Descriptions for Users of the Mer- lewood Method of Land Classification, In- stitute of Terrestrial Ecology, Merlewood Research Station, UK, 1981. % A Galbraith and M.W. Pienkowski, ‘Bird conservation as a basis for land-use policies in Britain’, in K. Stastny and V. Bejcek, eds, Bird Census and At/as Stu- dies: Proceedings of the Xlth lnfemational Conference on Bird Census and Atlas Work, Prague, 1990; P.V. Grice and C.A. Galbraith, Conservation Strategies Using Ornithological Objectives, JNCC Report No 5, Joint Nature Conservation Commit- tee, Peterborough, UK, 1992. 24D.A. Ratcliffe, ed, A Nature Conservafion Review, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK, 1977.

72

ture to be based on zones defined to reflect the ‘diversity of environmental situations, natural conditions, agricultural structure and the main types of farming practised’ would provide a framework for such

judgements. *’ Such zones could either be defined by administrative boundaries or biogeographic criteria.

To target agri-environment measures so that they both achieve national objectives and recognize and maintain local diversity, information on wildlife at different scales needs to be brought together in a common framework. The system of land classes developed by the Institute of Terrestrial Ecology (ITE) is based on a wide range of mapped environmental data such as climatic, geological and topo- graphic variables.‘* This classification has now been carried out consis- tently for each 1 km* in Great Britain. As such. the system provides a national overview of regional variation in important environmental variables. It can also be used to assess the land available for specific uses, though it does not itself tell us about the actual distribution of land uses, land cover or flora and fauna. However, it does provide a stratification for detailed sampling work to characterize variation in these features, where the acquisition of census data is too costly to be practicable.

Much information about wildlife distributions is also collected at the 1 km’ and coarser levels and can therefore be readily integrated into this system. For example, recent work uses actual distributions of bird assemblages to define ‘ornithological regions’ for the country.23 Com- bined with the land class system, this approach allows a broad-brush assessment of the major priorities and objectives for nature conservation in different parts of the country. Practical measures to realize these objectives need to be interpreted at the local level in relation to individual parcels of land. Whether or not an existing habitat mosaic will continue to sustain the characteristic wildlife community will depend partly on the quality of the different habitats present.

Quality appropriateness

The ‘quality’ of habitats for nature conservation is assessed according to a framework established by Ratcliffe, which uses concepts such as rarity, fragility, diversity and naturalness.” Existing habitats of each type (grassland, wetland, etc) survive in a range of qualities. In each region there are some habitats of the highest quality, in nature conservation terms, which will generally be designated as SSSI; below this there may be a range of habitats made up of semi-natural vegetation and other good wildlife habitat, as well as areas of artificial habitat, which is generally of low intrinsic value for wildlife. We refer to the distribution of areas across this range of qualities as the ‘quality profile’ of the region.

Relating prescriptions for each habitat to the range in quality is important to achieving value for money. Setting prescriptions for the average quality will lead to a ‘levelling down’ of the nature conservation interest of the best. However, there is no point in applying exacting (and expensive) prescriptions suitable for excellent examples to poorer areas that will not respond and provide equivalent benefits. The objective is to maintain the quality profile of habitats in each region, enhancing it if possible. This requires tiered prescriptions and a system to ensure that land of a given quality is entered at the appropriate tier.



The changes that have been made to the first round of ESAs as a result of the recent policy review conducted by the Ministry of Agricul- ture, Fisheries and Food (MAFF) are an admirable step in this direction. In these ESAs the review has been used to develop the tiering structure, providing, for example, a second tier in the Pennine Dales targeted at hay meadows, and in the Somerset levels a third tier to provide high water levels.

However, the challenge is to set criteria that enable land to be allocated to the appropriate tier in a way that is accountable and understood by farmers. In practice, MAFF project officers play a crucial role, through advice and persuasion, in ensuring that land is entered at the most appropriate tier. In future, greater discretion could be exercised to achieve value for money by publishing criteria that state which land qualifies for the upper tiers, and using inventories of the best sites for wildlife, including both Sites of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI) and non-SSSI land. The administrative costs involved should be measured against the benefits of effective and appropriate targeting of prescriptions.

On the best sites, flexibility and individual tailoring of prescriptions are generally necessary if the quality is to be maintained. Management needs to vary in response to the vegetation, and to be able to accommodate year-to-year variations as well as those attributes that are peculiar to the site. Such areas require cooperative and understanding management from the farmer as well as a willingness to meet the management prescriptions suitable for the highest-quality tier of sites. Generally SSSIs require such sensitive and responsive management. The committed and positive management needed at the top end of the quality profile cannot be achieved by standard prescriptions, however demanding or detailed, nor by making support for the farmer’s food production dependent on his or her meeting a set of conditions. What is needed is a system for topping-up the standard prescriptions and payments that reflect the greater restrictions and the flexibility required to secure the wildlife interest. This is the purpose of English Nature’s Wildlife Enhancement Scheme.2’

Fit with farm systems

The conservation of farmland habitats depends on the farmers’ ability to fit the necessary activities into their own routine operations. There is often a range of possible ways of managing a habitat to conserve its wildlife interest, and farmers can help conservationists define what methods are feasible. It is vital that the management requirements prescribed by policy makers are appropriate to the farming system in the region concerned. This requires either a careful tailoring of the prescriptions in the light of the farm businesses in the area, or support for appropriate farm systems to enable them to meet the management needs, or both. Proper fit with the farming system in a region is important to achieving a reasonable scale of take-up.

‘5English Nature, Wildlife Enhancement The extent to whit h the conservation resource is ‘peripheral’ or

Scheme, Scheme Literature, English Na- ‘integra1’ to the zm -_ rarm system influences how nature conservation man- _?L-.

ture. Peterborouah. UK. 1991. agement is delivered (Table 11 .L” Reinstating appropriate management 26P.‘A. Merricks, ‘A. review of environmen- -

- -.

tally sensitive areas in England’ (unpub- of a fragment of land not used in the current farmmg system is more

lished), Nature Conservancy Council, costly than supporting existing management, even with some modifica- Peterborough, UK, 1990. tions. In the Broads Grazing Marshes Conservation scheme, Coleman


Targeting for nature conservution in agriculturul policy

27D.R. Coleman, ‘Economic issues from the Broads grazing marshes conservation scheme’, Journal of Agricultural Econo- mics, Vol 40, No 3, 1989, pp 338344. %EAS Consultants (Wye) Ltd, Develop- ment of a Low/and Heath/and Manage- ment Scheme, Project No 4F3-07-I 40, Re- port to the Nature Conservancy Council, Nature Conservancy Council, Peterbor- ough, UK, 1990; E.J. Blane, ‘The conservation of chalk grasslands in the York- shire wolds’ (unpublished), Nature Con- servancy Council, Peterborough, UK, 1991. “1, Hodge, ‘Incentive policies and the rural environment’, Journal of Rural Studies, Vol 7, No 4, 1991, pp 373-384.

74 LAND USE POLICY January 1993

Table 1. Role of the conservation resource within the farm economy as a predictor of aspects of the success of environmental schemes.

Issues

Role of conservation resource

Integral

Vital to farm economy

Peripheral

Peripheral to farm economy

Take-up Depends on extent of changes required Depends on full cost recovery and extent to which these constrain output

Boundary Needs to include whole farm Whole farm mclusion desirable but not essential

Quality profile Higher number of top-quality sites in Fewer top-quality sites. Higher pro- matrix of good wildlife habitat portion of artificial habitat

Prescriptions Need is for tiering of prescriptions which Need is for habitat creation/reversion to apply to existing habitat buffer existing area from damaging im-

pacts of surrounding intensive land use and restore whole management units

showed that farmers who still had grazing enterprises did not require full compensation to induce them to remain in grazing and forgo the opportunity to convert to wheat production.*’ By contrast, when the management needed for conservation is additional to the commercial management systems - whether through the management of ‘fragments’ or the reversion of productive land to a less productive use - farmers are likely to require payment of the full costs or more.

One of the main problems for areas of nature conservation interest in the lowlands is undermanagement.2x This is often because grazing livestock are no longer part of the farm system, and the necessary skills and equipment are no longer available. As a result, different strategies may be needed to secure the management of the areas of high nature conservation interest. Policies for these areas may need to support novel approaches, including management by non-farmer owners and cooperation between owners, to provide the necessary management. Hodge points out that substantial areas of land are owned by organizations which he names Conservation, Amenity and Recreation Trusts (CARTS).*” He reviews their potential contribution as agents of government policy and as direct managers of the land, and the limits of this contribution. Since one of their major objectives is the enhancement of the rural environment, this reduces the need for bureaucratic control. However, some element of public support is appropriate because society as a whole gains from the environmental benefits that they provide.

These differences are important when considering how widely the boundary of a designated area should be drawn, and whether eligibility for the scheme would be dependent on whole-farm entry. If a good fit with farm systems is not achieved, a scheme may even have adverse consequences. In ‘integral’ areas it is particularly important that schemes should apply over the whole of any farms that are included. Otherwise, in adapting their farm systems to meet conservation requirements within scheme boundaries, farmers may intensify their operations outside the boundary to avoid a net reduction in output. A case in point is the Pennine Dales, where the hay meadows in the valleys are inside the ESA and the heather moorland higher up the slopes is excluded. However, the two habitats are inextricably linked, since most farmers have both meadow land within the ESA and moorland, or grazing rights on moorland, outside. There is some concern that the ESA is actually

Particularly important in peripheral areas is the need for ‘greening’ measures in relation to the large areas of arable land and land set aside from arable production which often lie between areas of wildlife habitat. Ensuring value for money once again means that these measures have to be targeted. Rather than seek a vague and general greening of both arable and set-aside land, it is important to be explicit about the nature conservation benefits that can be expected on this land and about how long this will take. We consider that there are four key objectives that can be sought for nature conservation on such land:

0

0

protecting and enhancing existing good wildlife habitat on the farm, such as hedges, ponds, ditches, semi-natural grasslands and woodland; improving the nature conservation value of the arable area, for example by re-establishing a mosaic of grassland, fallow and crop, and by simulating traditional fallowing, spring cropping and rotations; providing improved habitats for species that are widely dispersed, mobile and dependent on a range of habitats. This benefit will be achieved mainly through management options for ground-nesting birds, migratory geese, and winter-feeding birds, but provisions for bats, badgers and barn owls are other examples;

30Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, The Pennine Dales Environmentally Sensitive Area. Report of Monitoring 199 1, MAFF Publications, London, UK, 1991,


causing increased pressure, through greater stocking rates, on the adjacent heather moorland. This is known as the ‘halo’ effect.

The report of the monitoring carried out by MAFF in the Pennine Dales indicates a fairly limited intensification of land outside the ESA boundary defined in terms of improvements to land, but there was a substantial increase in the use of bought-in feed.“” Stock numbers are not included in the ESA prescriptions and details of changes in stock numbers are not covered by the monitoring report. The intensification which leads to damage may take the form of ecological overgrazing of moorland sustained by bought-in feed, rather than direct improvement of grassland by fertilizing or drainage. The halo effect needs to be assessed by looking at the response of whole farm units which have some land inside the ESA boundary (and in agreement) and some (land or rights) outside.

In the case of ‘peripheral’ areas, it is less crucial that environmental schemes include whole farms since the conservation resource occurs in much more discrete blocks, and the farmer is less likely to carry out damaging practices on land outside the boundary as a result of the changes that he or she is making within it. Nevertheless, in ‘peripheral’ areas there would still be benefits in drawing up a whole farm plan that identified a range of peripheral features to be conserved as well as

opportunities and best locations for enhancement. ‘Integral’ and ‘peripheral’ areas also have different quality profiles

(Figure 2). In the former there is a greater proportion of top-quality sites - both of SSSI quality and just below this - and these are set in a matrix containing a greater proportion of good wildlife habitat. Peripheral areas have fewer top-quality sites, little other good wildlife habitat and a high proportion of artificial land of low wildlife value. This leads to different needs for the coverage of prescriptions in targeting for quality appropriateness. The integral areas require a more sophisticated system of tiering to target the different levels of interest of existing habitats at the top end of the quality profile. In the peripheral areas there is a greater need for a focus on restoration options.


Targeting for nature conservution in agricultural policy

,a, hcmai

Figure 2. Quality profiles of areas where the conservation resource is integral and peripheral to the farm system

These graphs illustrate the way in which the role of the conservation resource within the farm system leads to different quality profiles and different needs for the targeting of policy measures. In each graph the area of wildlife habitat is plotted against an imaginary scale of habitat quality running from 0 (artificial habitats) to 100 (SSSI quality). Where the conservation resource is integral to the farm system, there is a greater area of top-quality land set in a matrix of good wildlife habitat, leading to a need for tiered prescriptions. Where it is peripheral, there is a smaller area of top- quality habitat and a higher proportion of artificial habitat, leading to the need for reversion options to buffer and expand the remaining fragments and to bring them into practical management units.

0 contributing to conservation programmes for species and species groups, for example, the arable weed flora.

Some of these benefits will be achievable through general measures such as allowing stubbles to overwinter and leaving seed heads for winter- feeding birds, but others will require that habitat creation and enhancement options are carried out in optima1 locations.

Optimal location of habitat creation and enhancement

Securing the best location for newly created habitats is important since these options are often expensive and the relationship of different habitats to each other affects the ability to support wildlife populations and maintain distributions. Principles from landscape ecology suggest that linking up isolated patches of habitat is likely to lead to improved


31P. Selman and N. Doar, ‘An investiga- tion of the potential for landscape ecology to act as a basis for rural land use plans’, Journal of Environmental Management, Vol35, 1992, pp 281-299. 32H. Smith and D.W. Macdonald, ‘Secon- dary succession on extended arable field margins: its manipulation for wildlife benefit and weed control’, Sri&ton Crop Pro- tection Conference - Week, UK, 1989, pp 1063-1068; T.A. Watt, H. Smith and D.W. Macdonald, ‘The control of annual grass weeds in fallowed field margins managed to encourage wildlife’, Proceedings of the European Weed Research Society Sym- posibm, 1990, pp 187-195. 33M.B Thomas, S.D. Wratten and N.W. Sotherton, Creation of “island” habitats in farmland to manipulate populations of be- neficial arthropods: predator densities and emigration’, Journal of Applied Ecology, Vol 28, 1991, pp 906-917. 34R Deane, Expanded Field Margins. Their Costs to the Farmer and Benefits to Wildlife, Nature Conservancy Council, Peterborough, UK, 1989; C. Keenleyside and D. Morris, Management Opfions for Expanded Field Margins, Nature Conser- vancy Council, Peterborough, UK, and Countryside Commission, -Cheltenham, UK. 1991: N.W. Sotherton. N.D. Boatman and M.R.W. Rands, ‘The’ “Conservation Headland” Experiment’, The Enfomolog- ist, No 108, 1989, pp 135-143. 35C.W.D. Gibson, T.A. Watt and V.K. Brown, ‘The use of sheep grazing to recre- ate species rich grassland from abandoned arable land’, EGological Conserva- tion, No 42, 1987, pp 165-l 83.


viability of associated populations. 31 In view of the overall priority given to the conservation of existing habitats, it is suggested that the location and needs of these areas should be a major determinant of where habitat creation should take place; the newly created habitat should be used to expand and buffer the existing areas, provide complementary habits and ecotones, and link such areas together to form practical management units, for example where grazing is needed.

The Nature Conservancy Council (NCC) and, subsequently, English Nature have funded work by the University of Oxford at Wytham on the secondary succession on extended arable field margins and its manipulation for wildlife benefit and weed control.“2 This has shown that the creation of diverse, perennial plant communities on arable field margins can offer low-cost weed control and considerable benefits to wildlife. We believe that there would be merits in aiming for at least 10% of set-aside land to be in the form of field margins. It would contribute to the objective of buffering and linking existing good wildlife habitats on the farm, which are often at the field margin. The Oxford work has shown that where the existing flora at the field margin consist of crop weeds such as black grass and sterile brome, the sowing of a mixture of grasses and dicotyledonous herbs can serve as a useful form of weed control. On the other hand, where the old margin already contains more desirable plant species such as cowslip, it is better not to sow, but instead to allow natural colonization to take place so that these species can spread. This work needs to be developed to produce decision rules for ‘real’ situations so that the appropriate option (to sow or not to sow) and management can be chosen in each case.

Work at Southampton University has shown how the creation of grassland ridges dividing arable fields can bring advantages for wildlife and help control cereal pests by increasing the density of predatory insects and spiders.“3 In this way, land set aside from production can benefit nature and the farm economy by reducing the need for the use of pesticides. Environmental benefits become integrated with arable production methods. Several options for the management of field margins for nature conservation benefits have been described.‘4 A programme of support to encourage adoption of such methods would significantly improve the statue of wildlife in our more intensely managed areas.

Gibson and co-workers have investigated the use of sheep grazing to re-create species-rich calcicolous grassland on abandoned arable fields. 35 This expe ri m ent has shown that on shallow limestone soils adjacent to an existing area of grassland that provided a seed source, a species-rich grassland could be re-created from abandoned arable land under a grazing regime. Clearly, not all abandoned arable land will yield these results; most is not on shallow calcareous soils within easy reach of a seed source, and much is on heavy soils with a large phosphorus loading which will be hard to run down. Nevertheless, to obtain the greatest conservation benefits, it would be desirable to apply a regime such as that used in this experiment, rather than sowing down a standard mix, where the conditions were appropriate. This requires a set-aside scheme in which environmental management options are integrated, with discretion to apply different options according to the circumstances. This degree of flexibility is not possible within present schemes.

Habitat creation can also make a major contribution to the conservation of widely dispersed mobile species, notably birds, and to meeting international obligations for their protection. In many cases the need is


Turgeting for nature conservation in agricultural policy

36Nature Conservancy Council and Coun- tryside Commission, The Counfryside Pre- mium for Set-aside Land, Countryside Commission, Cambridge, UK, 1990. 37C.W.D. Gibson (English Nature), personal communication. %SPB, personal communication. 39Hopkins, op tit, Ref 7. 40Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, The Farm Woodland Premium Scheme: Rules and Procedures, MAFF Publications, London, UK, 1992.

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to provide a suitable mosaic of feeding, roosting and breeding areas. For example, the Countryside Premium scheme offers a wildlife fallow option on set-aside land which provides suitable conditions for ground- nesting birds such as the lapwing and the rare stone curlew.“6 Also, former arable land which has been changed back to grassland on the Essex coast provides valuable winter feeding grounds for the interna- tionally important populations of Brent Geese and breeding areas for oystercatcher, redshank and lapwing in summer?’ To achieve value for money these options need to be targeted. using ornithological survey information, to the areas that are most likely to be used by the birds.

The two types of need described above - the buffering or expansion of existing habitats and contributions to the conservation of wild birds - can often be met through the introduction of a relatively limited set of non-competitive grasses and one or two broad-leaved herbs. Such mixtures provide a matrix for colonization by local species from adjacent habitats. In some cases grassland sown in this way will not suffice to attract birds such as geese away from winter wheat; it may be necessary to manage the grassland more intensively - adding fertilizer to produce a lush sward and cutting frequently-or to scare the birds away from the cereal or even to grow a ‘sacrificial crop’. This means that winter wheat is established as normal, possibly with reduced use of fertilizer, the birds are allowed to feed and the crop is then ‘killed’ in April with glyphosate, providing bare soil which would be attractive to nesting lapwing, ringed plover, oystercatcher and other birds.3X

In addition, visually attractive wildflower meadows may be created, using a wider range of grasses and dicotyledonous species, with a view to creating a wildlife amenity. But to produce amenity areas requires considerable skill and the costs of establishing them and of short-term management are high.3” They should therefore be targeted on places where people can see them and enjoy them, such as adjacent to public footpaths and other rights of way.

Other habitats, notably woodland. are created on farmland through agricultural policies such as the Farm Woodland Premium Scheme.“” Here too there is a need for targeting, so that new woodland is created in areas that are currently of least environmental interest, and is located in a way that maximizes the environmental benefits, for example by expanding or linking existing woods.

A number of mechanisms could be used to achieve the targeting needs described here. For example, the published literature for a scheme could set out criteria for the eligibility of land, such as ‘within 1 km of a public right of way’ for a wildflower meadow option; or the use of a sward test to identify improved grassland suitable for the planting of farm woodlands. Alternatively, if there were enough advisers on the ground they could guide farmers so that arable reversion and other habitat-creation options were targeted to the places where they could do most good for conservation. The existence, in an easily accessible form, of inventories of habitat and areas used by important wildlife popula-

tions would prove a valuable tool whether the mechanism for targeting were based on published criteria, advice or both.

Discussion

There are various means of achieving targeting for nature conservation. They include advice, incentives, green modulation, regulation and


Targeting for nature conservabon in agricultural policy

cross-compliance. Hodge has reviewed the benefits and pitfalls of a range of mechanisms for different situations.4’ For all the targeting needs considered in this article, good advice is a crucial ingredient, whether in the form of published scheme literature or on-the-ground advice by a project officer. For matching prescriptions with the quality profile and choosing the best location for enhancement, published criteria will rarely suffice and on-the-ground advice will be needed. Employing enough advisers to provide this level of advice inevitably increases administration costs as a proportion of the total budget for the scheme. However, without good advice it is impossible to achieve value for money and there is even a danger that ‘environmental’ monies might be directed towards activities that are damaging.

But advice on its own will rarely be sufficient to secure positive management; it needs to be linked to positive incentives or regulation. One way of building environmental objectives into agricultural policies is to make a farmer’s support for food production dependent on meeting certain conditions or on participation in an environmental scheme.42 For example, all farmers are bound by the Code of Good Agricultural Practice which helps to secure safe disposal of harmful chemicals and so minimize the polluting effects of farming on wildlife (one of the principles in Section 2).43 Green modulation of headage payments in the uplands could be used to reward farmers stocking at environmentally sustainable densities. Similarly, the requirement to set aside 15% of land in intensive production, which is currently being considered as part of the CAP reform proposals, could bring about significant wildlife benefits, provided that environmental options were integrated into this requirement and farmers were adequately compensated.

However, the quality profile also needs to be taken into account when schemes are designed. The sensitivity of habitats to management increases as quality increases, and at the top end of the quality profile there is a need for positive management which has the farmer’s commitment. The extent to which this can be achieved through making a farmer’s support dependent on observing conditions is limited, and voluntary incentive schemes are needed. Of the existing incentive schemes, the ESAs seem to have proved their worth as a policy mechanism in ‘integral’ areas. Current improvements in the workings of ESAs as a result of the policy review, such as the development of the tiering structure and introduction of the conservation plan, have further refined their ability to achieve targeted nature conservation benefits within defined boundaries in such areas.

Less convincing is their ability to tackle ‘peripheral’ areas, and this is now a major concern in lowland England, where the majority of the resource is fragmented. An integrated mechanism to cater for these areas would require a basic tier of management prescriptions geared to protecting existing farmland habitats and features such as hedgerows,

4’Hodge, op tit, Ref 29. wetlands and woodlands, a further tier for reversion and enhancement,

@Taylor and Dixon, op tit, Ref 2. and a separate, tightly targeted tier for existing semi-natural habitats. 43Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and This last tier could be targeted using inventories showing the location of Food, Code of Good Agricultural Practice for the Protection of Water, MAFF Publica-

existing habitats of conservation value. The use of inventories drawn up

tions, London, UK, 1991. by NCC, and subsequently English Nature, is now an accepted policy 44Forestrv Commission. The Policv for tool for targeting mainstream forestrv prants.44 It is Broadleabed Woodland& Forestry kom-

v v , u

mission, Edinburgh, UK, 1985; and fore- similar approach could be used in agriculture, at

stry Policy for Great Britain, Forestry Com- conservation resource is fragmented. However, the mission, Edinburgh, UK, 1991. broad ESA boundary with tight targeting within it

suggested that a least where the designation of a would require a



45Hodge, op tit, Fief 29.

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development of the ESA policy beyond its current formulation. For the present it will therefore be necessary to seek other means of targeting the nature conservation resource in ‘peripheral’ areas.

Countryside Stewardship would appear to be a useful model for ‘peripheral’ situations, since it is not constrained by the need to operate within designated areas, and the scheme can exercise discretion on whether or not to accept land submitted to it. However, the limited budget and restricted range of landscape types addressed by the scheme at present reduces its efficacy. Still, the acute need for a scheme that brings fragmented habitats into mainstream agricultural policy suggests that this scheme should be equipped to cope with a wider range of situations. Further, any scheme targeted to peripheral areas will need to assume that take-up will depend on (at least) full cost recovery and that its cost-effectiveness in these areas will not be comparable with the same or other schemes operating in integral areas.

In cases where existing farm systems can no longer support the management necessary to sustain the resource, such as where isolated patches of grassland on wholly arable farms require grazing livestock, more novel approaches may be required. These might involve cooperation between farms to manage a conservation flock, with support through appropriate incentives. In such cases, judicious targeting of reversion options, whether through environmental set-aside options or other schemes, will enable the existing resource to be brought back into

practical management units. Thus there will often be benefits in taking a whole-farm approach, even in peripheral situations - something which Countryside Stewardship has not, so far, attempted.

In some cases, flat-rate payments will not be capable of securing the positive management required. For example, in a grazing marsh situa- tion, a payment for maintaining high water levels that is pitched at the average farmer is unlikely to secure the voluntary cooperation of the exceptional farmer who has already converted to arable. In these situations, it is likely that some element of a ‘profits foregone’ payment will be necessary. Further, on sites of the highest quality, flexibility and individual tailoring are often needed, with provision for topping up the standard payment to reflect the special management required. At least in some cases, this need can be met by the SSSI system.

To achieve effective targeting of policies in the future, more effort is needed on the part of policy makers in specifying the desired environmental outputs from farming. This will entail setting environmental objectives that are more specific and are clearly linked to farming practice rather than to climatic fluctuations, for example, and which can be measured. Farmers are experienced at judging, for instance, the best time of year to take a hay crop or turn out stock in relation to year-to-year variations in rainfall or temperature. Prescriptions need to move away from specifying rigid dates and numbers for these activities, and towards stating that. for example, targeted bird species should have left the nest or targeted plant species should have set seed, so that the responsibility for making these judgements is placed firmly on the farmer. Hodge points out that linking incentives to results provides farmers with the flexibility to find the least-cost method of achieving the desired end result in their circumstances, and possibly leads them to develop new approaches.” However, the success of this method depends on whether the ‘result’ to which the payment is linked is a good proxy for all aspects of the desired environmental outcome.



Ilbery points to the illogicality of developing partial solutions to land use issues, and draws attention to the need to look at the countryside as a whole, as first attempted in the Scott report.46 We agree that it is important that policy provides farmers with the right tools to realize their potential contribution to the rural environment. This paper makes the case for a suite of tools, each targeted to address the range of environmental needs and to ensure the most effective and efficient use of resources.

Conclusions

There are many changes taking place within agricultural policy at present which offer opportunities to build in targeting to increase the effectiveness of policies for nature conservation. There is not scope within this paper to explore each individual mechanism and how targeting would be achieved within it. We see no possibility for a single environmental policy within agriculture to provide for all the needs of nature conservation. What is needed is a range of different policies which can be used in different combinations in different areas, according to the regional characteristics of the area. The main points that need to be incorporated when developing these policies are as follows:

0 The needs of wildlife have to be specifically addressed in agricultural policy, as a rich wildlife is no longer an automatically joint product of farming systems. Measures to achieve this need to be targeted to ensure effectiveness and value for money. Semi-natural habitats are a priority because of their scarcity and the irreversibility of losses. Building on these habitats through creation and restoration is a lower priority, but is particularly important where the wildlife resource has become peripheral to the farm system. The key need is for policies that reflect regional differences in wildlife and different qualities of habitats, that fit the farm systems present and that ensure habitat creation occurs in the most appropriate places. A broad framework is needed to enable national objectives for nature conservation and regional diversity to be reflected in the policy mix available in different parts of the country. The ITE land classification system provides an overview of the regional variation in important environmental variables. Wildlife information can be integrated with this and form the basis for balancing priorities. Agri-environmental measures should reflect the quality profile of habitats in different areas. Tiered prescriptions are needed to achieve this, particularly where the nature conservation resource is integral to the farming systems. Habitat restoration should be targeted to buffer and reduce the isolation of existing semi-natural habitats and enhance the capacity of the farmed area to support wide-ranging species. Whole farm participation in agri-environmental measures is essential in areas where the wildlife resource is integral to the farm systems. This is not essential in other areas, but is desirable in that it allows the effective planning of measures to reduce fragmenta- tion and enhance the nature conservation value of the farm as a whole. Effective implementation of agri-environmental measures requires

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0

46B.W. Ilbery, ‘From Scott to ALURE - and back again?‘, Land Use Policy, Vol 9, No 2, April 1992, pp 131-142. 0



clear criteria for matching land with the right prescription. The need for sensitive management of the best sites implies that there are limits to what regulation or cross-compliance can be expected to achieve.

0 Successful implementation requires good advice to farmers and incentives to encourage participation. It is also preferable if outcomes, rather than detailed prescriptions on how to achieve these, are specified.

0 Where existing farm systems are unable to deliver the full range of required management, policies may need to support novel approaches such as cooperative projects and partnerships with voluntary groups.


Targeting for nature conservation in agricultural policy

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