The farmed landscape has a large role to play in conserving and restoring biodiversity levels across Europe. Continued ecosystem degradation has led to the European Green Deal calling for sustainable food systems in the Farm to Fork Strategy and enhanced protection of natural resources in agricultural landscapes in the Biodiversity Strategy 2030. The latter sets the target for 10% of agricultural land to incorporate landscape features, or non-productive areas which provide ecosystem services and support biodiversity. The proposed Nature Restoration Regulation also targets the maintenance and creation of landscape features, such as “buffer strips, rotational or non-rotational fallow land, hedgerows, individual or groups of trees, tree rows, field margins, patches, ditches, streams, small wetlands, terraces, cairns, stonewalls, small ponds and cultural features”.
The CAP Strategic Plans will be a key tool to promote improved maintenance and creation of landscape features in agricultural landscapes through conditionality (Good Agricultural and Environmental Condition (GAEC) 8) and additional funding within eco-schemes under Pillar 1 and EAFRD-funded agri-environment-climate measures under Pillar 2 targeting various landscape features.
This first meeting of the ENRD Thematic Group on Landscape Features and Biodiversity focused on sharing examples of European good practices and promising approaches to encourage landscape features, discussing how these can be better supported using various interventions under the CAP and what the key enablers and barriers are to doing this.
Aims of the meeting
- To explore how greater maintenance, restoration and creation of landscape features can be achieved via the CAP through the identification of the key enabling conditions that must be in place.
- To identify ways in which the range of CAP interventions can be used to support different types of landscape features and what other support is required to promote more diversity and higher-quality landscape features for biodiversity and ecosystem services.
- Share experiences and lessons learnt from Member States’ previous programming period supporting landscape features and discuss how these may inform approaches under the CSPs.
Please, find presentations, agenda, background material and updated information about this event on the new EU CAP Network website.
