A Green Architecture for Green Infrastructure

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Hedgerows, trees, grass strips, water courses and ditches, land lying fallow or extensive arable land and extensive grassland support biodiversity in farmland. The biodiversity benefits are however context and management specific. This policy briefing contains recommendations for the minimum amount of green and blue infrastructure in agricultural lands to support biodiversity and how this can be integrated into the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP).

Biodiversity is declining globally, During the past decades, intensification of agriculture has been a key driver of the loss of biodiversity with biodiversity in agriculture landscapes declining even faster than in other landscape types.

For instance, farmland birds have declined by 57 % between 1980 and 2016.

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BIOdiversity GAIN of European Agriculture with CAP greening – the BIOGEA project

The BIOGEA project looked at the relationship between the different aspects of landscape complexity provided by green and blue infrastructure and their biodiversity benefits. Most green and blue infrastructure showed potential to support biodiversity. However, their effectiveness varies significantly among study sites and farming systems.

The Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) is central to the European Green Deal: a key source of funding for reaching the ambitions of the biodiversity strategy for 2030.

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BIOGEA - Testing BIOdiversity Gain of European Agriculture with CAP greening

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Main findings on how the CAP could support green and blue infrastructure

The project found that in all agricultural land, a minimum of green and blue infrastructure is needed for biodiversity. It is important that environmental objectives to maintain and increase green and blue infrastructure should be at the landscape scale to increase overall landscape diversity. The greatest benefit of additional green and blue infrastructure are found in landscapes of intermediate farming intensity. Maintaining existing green and blue infrastructure is the best policy for extensive systems. In intensive systems, more targeted efforts to reintroduce and restore green and blue infrastructure are needed to obtain significant biodiversity benefits.

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EU Biodiversity Strategy for 2030

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Despite moves to make the CAP more biodiversity-friendly, such as the introduction of “greening”, the requirement for most farmers to carry out basic environmental measures, in the last reform, little positive change in landscape diversity was seen in the case study areas. Farmers, when making choices on environmental measures, choose the measure closest to their existing farming practice. Advice they currently receive is not guiding them towards measures relevant to green and blue infrastructure. Additionally, the compulsory monitoring which European countries must carry out, is not enough to measure the impacts of farm policy.

Recommendations based on the findings

At least 10% of farmland on the farm level should be ecologically highly effective green and blue infrastructure.

The project backs up existing research which suggests this is the minimal requirement to see some positive impact on biodiversity. Furthermore, advice given to farmers should be more targeted and farm specific. It should explain the biodiversity benefits of certain measures. Sufficient monitoring to accurately measure green and blue infrastructure and biodiversity impacts should be a European level requirement for receiving agricultural funding.

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CAP4GI: Leverages and potentials in the Common Agricultural Policy for improved support of Green Infrastructure, biodiversity and ecosystem services

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These recommendations of the policy brief, presented at the European parliament at the end of the project, contributed to the evidence for the agricultural target in the EU Biodiversity Strategy to 2030. The Strategy requires 10% of the EU agricultural area to be under high-diversity landscape features. The European member states must meet this target when implementing the environmental measures of the CAP. The project findings therefore remain very relevant for their work.

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CAP4GI: Leverages and potentials in the Common Agricultural Policy for improved support of Green Infrastructure, biodiversity and ecosystem services

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This target must be implemented in Germany too. The German Commission on the future of agriculture also adopted the 10% target in their recommendations. German decision-makers will need to consider these recommendations in the final steps of agreeing how the CAP is implemented in the next funding period through their so-called “CAP Strategic Plan”. Taking GBI better into account in agricultural policy setting and implementation will be a key element of meeting biodiversity targets for 2030 in Germany and Europe.

adelphi builds on the BIOGEA findings through the project CAP4GI which looks at ways to support farmers in their decisions around implementing environmental measures in Germany.

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