More and more people outside and inside academic specialisms are becoming aware of the pressing need to halt dramatic losses in biodiversity worldwide.
The EU H2020 project, FRAMEwork is mounting an ambitious response to these critical problems.
The project will create a Biodiversity Sensitive Farming System that will encourage and enable farmers to conserve biodiversity, promote a rebalancing of agriculture in a way
that capitalises on the value of native biodiversity, and
improve the capacity of farming to deliver food and
nutritional security in the face of climate change, disease pandemics and other pressures on the system.
WP5 (Biodiversity management and monitoring) will provide technical knowledge and innovation to support the implementation of biodiversity sensitive management practices and biodiversity targeting and monitoring. To achieve this, WP5 will develop and test a DST (FRAMEselect) that integrates technical guidance on biodiversity monitoring and management to help farmers identify the most ecologically sound and pragmatic solution for biodiversity sensitive farming as part of the operations of the Advanced Farmer Cluster network in WP2. To support this, biodiversity sensitive management practices will be reviewed, and new methods developed through participation with the Advanced Farmer Cluster network. FRAMEselect will also be underpinned by biodiversity indicators to estimate the impact of selected actions on farm environmental performance and enhanced ES. Monitoring methods and strategies will be developed in parallel with the indicators and will include novel approaches, e.g. bioacoustics or remote sensing (e.g. AMIBIO). Focussing on reliability and ease of use, they will be designed and tested in partnership with Cluster farmers and facilitators to ensure they are suitable for application in citizen science monitoring programmes.