Enhancing conservation of traditional rural biotopes through spatial targeting of management actions - a practical challenge

Abstract

Traditional rural biotopes (TRBs), which are biologically and culturally valuable habitats maintained by low-intensity grazing and mowing, are a core element of biodiversity in Europe. During the last decades, TRBs have faced severe habitat loss and fragmentation due to agricultural modernization. Despite their well-known critical state, their conservation remains inadequate, thus raising a need to promote TRB conservation via spatial land-use planning. In an earlier study (1) we analyzed a GIS database on Finnish TRBs in order to examine how the current TRB network can be complemented in terms of conservation value based on known ecological characteristics. Given different target scenarios for the amount of managed TRBs, we demonstrated where management should be directed to on national level. We concluded that in current state, biodiversity depending on TRB management is not efficiently sustained in Finland. Substantial amount of TRB habitats and populations of threatened TRB species are left unmanaged. Based on our results, we suggested that to advance TRB conservation in Finland, the cover of managed TRBs should be doubled and extended to form ecologically functional networks. However, it is well-known that although spatial prioritization techniques are highly effective at identifying where important areas for conservation are located, they are of limited use for deciding how implementation of conservation actions should be undertaken (2). To overcome this research-implementation gap, we conducted the prioritization analysis as a part of developing a national agenda for management of protected TRBs in Finland (3). In this oral presentation, we will discuss how the spatial targeting can be brought into practice, for example by developing regionally defined management targets and site-specific prioritization criteria. The criteria that link the spatial prioritization to site-level management decision-making include GIS features such as occurrences of red-listed species and habitats, but also more practical issues such as the feasibility of grazing arrangements are important to be considered. On landscape level, it seems to be beneficial for both planning and practice to target management to sites that are relatively large in their size, and well connected to existing managed sites.

References:

1) Raatikainen K.J., Mussaari M., Raatikainen K.M., & Halme P. 2017: Systematic targeting of management actions as a tool to enhance conservation of traditional rural biotopes. - Biological Conservation 207: 90-99.

2) Knight A.T., Cowling R.M., Boshoff A.F., Wilson S.L. & Pierce S.M. 2011.: Walking in STEP: Lessons for linking spatial prioritisations to implementation strategies. - Biological Conservation 144: 202-211.

3) Raatikainen K.M. (ed.) 2017: Tavoitteet teoksi! Metsähallituksen Luontopalvelujen suuntaviivat perinnebiotooppien hoidolle 2025. - Metsähallitus, Parks & Wildlife Finland, Vantaa.