Planning activities by local government often seek to identify areas of land that offer particularly high value for conserving biotic resources. Because private land is being developed rapidly, there is heightened concern about identifying these areas. Although general principles on setting priorities for habitat protection are emerging, substantial ambiguity remains about how to implement these principles. Here, we offer a general modeling framework for evaluating how planning alternatives could affect Critical Habitat. The framework contains four components: stakeholder involvement, spatial modeling of Critical Habitat and development patterns, analysis of alternative scenarios, and evaluation and monitoring. We illustrate this approach using a case study from Summit County, Colorado, USA.

International audience

In western Europe, forest area has been expanding rapidly since the 19th century, mainly on former agricultural land. Previous studies show that plant diversity differs between these recent forests and ancient forests that were already forested at the time of first national cadastral surveys, around 1800. Here, we investigated the duration of such agricultural aftereffects. In northeastern France, large areas were deforested during the Roman occupation and thereafter abandoned to forest. In one such forest that was farmed during the period AD 50–250, we show that species richness and plant communities vary according to the intensity of former agriculture. These variations are linked to long‐term changes of chemical and structural soil properties. Hence, we suggest that such effects of past agricultural land use on forest biodiversity may be irreversible on an historical time scale.

Noordwijk.M van, 'Scaling trade-offs between crop productivity, carbon stocks and biodiversity in shifting cultivation landscape mosaics: the FALLOW model', Ecological Modelling, vol. 149(1-2), pp.113-126, 2002 | Scaling rules other than those based on area (â??scale-dependenceâ??) for â??environmental service functionsâ?? such as productivity, biodiversity and carbon stocks depend on spatial variability and spatial patterns within the landscape, on lateral flows and neighbourhood effects, and on the impact of scale-dependent â??actorsâ?? and â??agentsâ??. Previous models of shifting cultivation or crop-fallow rotations have described the fate of soil fertility and crop productivity for an average plot, as a function of intensity of land use, without explicit consideration of the scaling rules between plot and landscape. Up to medium land use intensities, a negative tradeoff exists between farmers's interest in crop productivity per unit area, and environmental interests in carbon stock and other parameters related to age of the fallow vegetation such as biodiversity. If land use intensity increases beyond a critical point, land will further degrade from a farmer's as well as from environmental perspective. In the Forest, Agroforest, Low-value Lands Or Waste model (â??FALLOW?â??) this description is applied at landscape scale to a mosaic of plots, to investigate the transient behavior under non-equilibrium conditions for different land use intensification scenario's. The FALLOW model is implemented in the STELLA environment and in the default form keeps track of the soil fertility changes in 100 fields, which may differ in initial fertility and dynamics. During any year in the simulation a number of these fields is cropped, while others are fallowed. During the fallow period aboveground C stocks accumulate and plot-level biodiversity changes in character during the succession from pioneer, via early and late secondary vegetation into â??primaryâ?? forest. The model user can define the time frames for each of these transitions, as well as determine the degree of species overlap between categories and area-based scaling rules within each category, to derive an indicator of landscape-level biodiversity. The model allows comparisons of spatially segregated as well as integrated solutions to multiple functionality of land use by applying â??forest reserveâ?? rules. Depending on the amount of between-plot variation in parameter values, the trade-off between carbon stock and crop productivity can shift by a factor 2, even though both properties are directly related to area. The trade-off between local and external stakeholder interests for a landscape mosaic can thus differ from that derived for a â??representative landscape elementâ??

'Pastoral Leases and Non-Pastoral Land Use' was released on 5 July 2002. The paper reviews pastoral lease arrangements across jurisdictions in Australia and the extent to which these affect the emergence of non-pastoral land uses. Some comparisons are also made with pastoral lease arrangements in New Zealand, which has a history and pattern of pastoral lease administration and land development similar to Australia.The paper consolidates and extends previous Commission research on pastoral lease administration and management, and conservation of biodiversity on private land.

E Harsoyo, 'Keragaman dan dinamika makrofauna tanah pada berbagai pola penggunaan lahan di Pekalongan , Jawa Tengah', p.181, 2002 | Biodiversities and Dynamics of Soil Macrofauna in Pekalongan, Central Java, were documented. Five land uses were studied i.e. tea (Camellia sinensis) plantation, coffee (Cciffe canephora) plantation, corn (Zea mays L.) plantation, clove (Eugenia aromatica O.K.) plantation and sengon (Paraserianthes falcataria L. Nielson) stand. The aims were to clarify the effect of land use patterns on population and diversity of soil macrofaunas and their dynamics related to the different land use systems. The study was done by using monolith of 25 cm x 25 cm in size, vertically divided into 4 layers-depth; organic layer, 0-10 cm, 11-20 cm, and 21-30 cm depth. All macrofauna found in the monoliths were identified, and counted. The collected data were analyzed using index of diversity, index of important value, statistic-F test and LSD test. Result showed that Arachnid and some ordo of Hexapods (Orthoptera, Coleoptera, Diptera, Lepidoptera dan Hymenopterc) were found very significant on soil surface and in organic layer. Where as in deeper soil layer only Oligochaeta dominated. The biodiversity tend to be lower with the increasing soil depth. The changes of types of land uses from traditional pattern to tea plantation will generally lower the biodiversity, especially in organic layer and in 0-10 cm soil depth. The number of soil macrofauna on tile surface and organic layers were fluctuated along the year; as shown by Arachnids and some ordo of Hexapods which were significant. Although some macrofauna in the soil relatively more stable. Biodiversity in all strata tend to be lower early in rainy season and then increase gradually toward the end of rainy season

Despite the importance of tropical moist forests for conserving biodiversity and storing carbon, forests continue to fall, because the private benefits of clearing land for agriculture far outweigh tangible economic gains from retaining forests. This report measures the financial disparity between forested and cleared land for small-scale farmers in two settlements in the western Brazilian Amazon where pastures are expanding and forests receding. Considering smallholder land use decisions—when and how much to deforest and for what purpose—the report weighs the trade-offs and complementarities among three development objectives: economic growth through agriculture, environmental sustainability, and poverty alleviation. Drawing on field data collected in the mid-1990s, it uses multivariate analysis to explore how factors such as soil quality and market access shape deforestation and use of cleared land. It introduces a farm-level bioeconomic linear programming model to illuminate how such factors influence land use over time, taking into account soil fertility shifts and exploring policy and technology options that give farmers incentives to slow deforestation without decreasing farm household income. -- Authors' Abstract

Because of the inadequacy of existing biodiversity distribution data, surrogate measures for regional biodiversity have long been used in conservation area selection. These measures include species and environmental data. However, the assumed relationship between surrogate measures and regional biodiversity has seldom been demonstrated. This study uses species and environmental surrogates (vegetation and landtypes) in selecting areas for conservation in the Limpopo Province of South Africa. The success of these measures in capturing known regional biodiversity is evaluated, as well as their success at identifying areas containing threatened, rare and endemic non-target biodiversity features. The effects of size, scale and quality of databases are also evaluated. There is a trade-off between representing non-target biodiversity features (especially rare, threatened and endemic features) and land-use efficiency. The trade-off between efficiency and representation suggests that many important conservation areas identified will rely on off-reserve management rather than formal protection. Furthermore, the results suggest that the IUCN-recommended national conservation targets of 10 % are inadequate.

This comprehensive report outlines a new solution to the biodiversity extinction crisis, in response to its warnings that unless farmers and the world's poorest peoples can learn to coexist with wildlife, hundreds of species may be lost. The approach, called ecoagriculture, seeks to help farmers, most urgently those living in or near biodiversity hotspots, to grow more food while conserving habitats critical to wildlife. The approach dramatically breaks with both traditional conservation policies and common agriculture techniques. Through the use of several dozen case studies, the report documents six key ecoagriculture strategies in use around the world. These methods can help farmers in industrialized and developing countries protect wild species and conserve habitat on and near their land while increasing agricultural production and farmer incomes.

Landscapes of upper tributary watersheds are being transformed, and social, economic and ecological �??distance�?? between lowland and upland areas is disappearing. As lowland concern about natural resource sustainability grows, perceived impacts of changing upland agriculture on biodiversity, climate change and downstream watershed services have become a focus of debate and conflict. Evolving agroforestry concepts provide a framework for understanding landscapes that include agriculture and forests, and for assessing impact on livelihoods and the environment.This paper summarizes recent assessments of impacts of various alternative land use practices currently found in the Mae Chaem watershed. Biophysical studies include impacts on plant biodiversity, carbon stocks, methane flux, stream flow and soil properties, while economic studies assess major crop production approaches and environmental concerns. These studies, conducted during 1997-2001 by researchers from ICRAF, the Royal Forest Department, Chiang Mai University and other partners working with ASB-Thailand, indicate that views of various land use practices as �??good�?? or �??bad�?? often break down on closer examination.Research findings are then synthesized to examine trade-offs associated with the various approaches to land use, and assess alternative scenarios of approaches to agroforestry landscape management. Again, answers are not simple, and overall outcomes will depend on balance and configuration within types of agroforestry landscapes.Given the increasing role of local governance institutions in managing both natural resources and growing conflict, the final section summarizes findings of some pilot studies exploring institutional dimensions of planning, managing and monitoring local landscapes that can help address central issues of growing land use conflict. Findings identify need for a monitoring and spatial information management system that can interface with and support localized natural resource and conflict management. ASB-Thailand is collaborating in development of a pilot system to provide prototype experience for policy formulation and larger development efforts | D.E Thomas, 'Landscape agroforestry in upper tributary watersheds of Northern Thailand', Journal of Agriculture (Thailand), vol. 18(Supplement 1), pp.255-302, 2002