Setting aside at least 20% of agricultural landscapes for rewilding and adopting wildlife friendly practices on remaining farmland could reverse biodiversity declines while maintaining food production.
Setting aside at least 20% of agricultural landscapes for rewilding and adopting wildlife friendly practices on remaining farmland could reverse biodiversity declines while maintaining food production. That is according to scientists who have put forward a blueprint for integrating nature recovery and farming.
Intensification of farming since the 1940s has been critical for increasing crop yields and livestock production but has significantly contributed to declines in biodiversity which in turn threatens long-term farm productivity through loss of pollination and soil, natural pest control, as well as water and nutrient retention.
Professor James Bullock, an ecologist at the UK Centre for Ecology & Hydrology (UKCEH), one of the authors of the study, said: “Reversing biodiversity loss and degradation of ecosystems is essential both for nature as well as long-term global food security. But there is no single silver bullet for nature recovery and so far it has been unclear how to integrate rewilding into agricultural landscapes.
Read more at UK Centre for Ecology & Hydrology
Image: A farmland landscape in central Spain where different actions to rewild it have taken place in the last four years. (Credit: Jose Maria Rey Benayas)
