Mapping of EU Support for High Nature Value Farmlands, from the Perspective of Natural and Landscape Regions

Decoupling economic growth from the exploitation of natural resources, protecting vulnerable ecosystems, restoring habitats and species, and supporting areas used for organic farming are, along with achieving climate neutrality, key tenets of the European Green Deal (EGD)—the EU’s new sustainable economic strategy. One direction of activities to implement several of these goals simultaneously is the provision of financial support for agricultural activities aimed at protecting valuable plant and animal habitats and species. This study aims to present research results that include an analysis of the spatial diversification of EU support for nature value habitats in Poland against the background of physico-geographical regions. To date, no such studies have been conducted: instead, analyses of the spatial differentiation in how selected forms of EU funding are taken up in Poland and other European countries have mainly referred to regional or local territorial divisions, and not to regions distinguished based on natural environmental features. Payments from Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) funds to support farms using nature value habitats were selected for the analysis. The analysis employed data from the Agency for Restructuring and Modernisation of Agriculture (ARMA), as a disburser of EU funds for agriculture in Poland: the data related to two packages (No. 4 and 5) of Agri-Environment-Climate Measures (AECM), which constitute one of the measures of the Rural Development Programme (RDP) 2014–2020. The spatial and statistical analyses not only supported a general description of EU support for the protection of nature value habitats in Poland but also allowed a detailed evaluation of the distribution and areal coverage of nature value habitats subsidised by RDP funds to be presented, and a comprehensive assessment of the scale of support for the natural habitats covered by the programme.