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International Natural Capital Webinar

  • Taskscape Associates
  • Jul 1
  • 5 min read

Updated: Jul 3

Connecting research and policy to halt biodiversity decline in agriculture...


On July 1st, 2025, FRAMEwork's coordinating partner the James Hutton Institute hosted a webinar organised with knowledge exchange partner Taskscape in collaboration with the UK's Natural Capital Initiative. "Halting biodiversity decline in agriculture: the role of science and essential policy initiatives in the EU and the UK" brought together leading experts from across Europe and the UK to explore innovative pathways for conserving biodiversity in agricultural landscapes. Through a natural capital lens, expert speakers explored connecting science and policy to help leverage and conserve agrobiodiversity.


Graphic: Natural Capital Initiative/Royal Society of Biology
Graphic: Natural Capital Initiative/Royal Society of Biology

The webinar was organised as part of 'Recodo In Real Life', an event series associated with the project's online knowledge, action and legacy platform, Recodo. Previous events include a webinar on Farmland Ecosystem Assessment Support and a hybrid conference at the Czech University of Life Sciences.


Want the TLDR? Look out for a summary of this webinar's key takeaways on LinkedIn. You can also explore the events calendar to sign up to future webinars or to receive dissemination materials from those that have already happened.


Setting the Scene: Why Landscape-Scale Action Matters


The webinar opened with an introduction from FRAMEwork chair Simone Martino, Senior Researcher in Valuing Natural Capital at the James Hutton Institute. After introducing the NCI, our H2020 project and the Recodo platform he posed a sobering reminder - despite decades of agri-environment schemes across Europe, biodiversity continues to decline in agricultural landscapes. This framing lead him to outline the guest speakers and webinar program, which was designed to explore how landscape-scale approaches and collaborative action could help reverse these trends.


Speakers:


Alison Smith Senior Research Associate in sustainable land-use pathways at Oxford University.


Kaley Hart Policy Analyst for EU CAP Network focusing on environment and climate aspects.


Camilla Moonen Agroecologist focusing on sustainable cropping systems and landscape agronomy approaches at project partner Sant'Anna University, Pisa.


David Baldock Senior Fellow at IEEP, previously Executive Director, with expertise in European agricultural, environmental, and climate policy.


Learning from European Experiences


Kaley Hart from the EU CAP Network kicked off the presentations by highlighting how the Common Agricultural Policy is evolving to better support biodiversity. Drawing on work from a recent thematic group involving 21 EU member states, she emphasized that individual farm-level agreements, while valuable, have limited impact on biodiversity at population levels.


"We need to encourage greater spatial coordination," Hart explained, presenting inspiring examples from across Europe:


  • In Austria, the "Erpel Connects" initiative requires farmers to create biodiversity areas on at least 7% of their land, specifically designed to form connecting habitats

  • The Netherlands is supporting dairy farmers near Natura 2000 sites to collaborate on reducing ammonia emissions while raising groundwater levels in peat meadows

  • Sweden's new approach encourages farmers to work together to create small habitats that increase landscape heterogeneity


The key message? Collaboration between farmers at landscape scale, supported by adequate funding and peer-to-peer learning, is essential for meaningful biodiversity outcomes.


Modeling Pathways and Finding Balance


Alison Smith from Oxford University presented fascinating insights from modeling work, exploring how to balance food production with biodiversity conservation. Her research compared land sparing (intensifying production on less land) with land sharing (integrating biodiversity measures across farmland) approaches.


Using case studies from Scotland, Smith illustrated that, while land sparing requires challenging productivity increases of 34% or more, land sharing can enhance resilience but may reduce yields by up to 24%. However, a combined approach through improving low-input system yields while implementing agroecological measures could reduce this trade-off significantly.


"The key is putting the right thing in the right place," Smith emphasized, showing how local opportunity mapping can help communities make informed decisions about land use that benefit both nature and farming.


Ground-Truthing Evidence from the Field


Next, FRAMEwork's Camilla Moonen from Sant'Anna University, Pisa, brought the discussion down to earth with concrete examples from project areas in Italy.

Her research in olive groves and arable systems revealed surprising findings:


  • Low-input olive groves contribute as much to wild bee abundance as herbaceous linear elements typically considered optimal for pollinators

  • Linear landscape elements (hedgerows, field margins) can be as effective as larger habitat patches for supporting biodiversity – good news for productive landscapes

  • Different species groups benefit from different landscape elements, highlighting the need for diverse management approaches


"There is not one single solution," Moonen stressed. "We need locally adapted approaches that respect both biodiversity needs and farming realities."


Policy Lessons from the UK


David Baldock provided unique insights into England's post-Brexit agricultural policy experiment. The shift from CAP to a "public money for public goods" approach has been ambitious but challenging. The Environmental Land Management schemes (ELMS), while promising in principle, have faced implementation hurdles including sudden policy changes that undermined farmer confidence.


Key lessons from the English experience include:


  • The importance of consistent policy signals and adequate funding

  • The need for robust advisory services during major transitions

  • The value of linking biodiversity targets to agricultural support

  • The challenge of moving farmers from simple to more ambitious environmental schemes


Critical Challenges and Ways Forward


The Q&A session revealed pressing concerns about the future of farming itself. As speaker Camilla Moonen poignantly noted, many farmers believe they represent "the last generation," facing severe labor shortages and economic pressures. This stark reality underscores the urgency of making biodiversity conservation economically viable for farmers and deploying appropriate technologies to support new generations coming through. Attendees echoed these concerns, raising practical questions about implementing biodiversity measures, including barriers posed by land ownership patterns and how to feasibly measure biodiversity outcomes given resource constraints. Participants also sought insights from England's ELMS experience and EU CAP developments to inform strategies for engaging farming communities to improve agricultural systems.


Overall, questions revealed shared concerns about bridging the gap between ambitious biodiversity goals and on-ground realities. Despite these challenges, the webinar ended on a hopeful note with David Baldock arguing that biodiversity conservation must become central to farming's economic logic, supported not just by policy but by the entire food supply chain noting, "Retailers, processors, co-ops – they all need to understand that biodiversity conservation is part of agriculture's core mission and help pay for it."



Engagement and Impact


Following promotion of the webinar, Taskscape received 80 external registrations from around the world and, with additional promotion to the NCI and FRAMEwork community, the project is pleased to share that over 90 people attended on the day. All registrants will receive access to post-event dissemination materials including slides and recordings and the webinar will be made available on the Recodo and Royal Society of Biology YouTube channels for future reference by those working on these important topics.


Taskscape and the project would like to thank event lead Simone Martino, the NCI partnership and the invited speakers for their essential involvement in this knowledge exchange opportunity. As we face the twin challenges of biodiversity loss and climate change, the webinar demonstrated that solutions exist but require fundamental shifts in how we design and implement agricultural policy. By bringing together science, policy and practice, events like this help build the shared understanding needed to collectively improve our food systems.

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This project has received funding from the European Union's

Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under

grant agreement No. 862731. 

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