Great post though I do have a couple of bones to pick. The argument that ecologist see no value in agroecosystems is rapidly evolving and an unfair (and largely out-dated) stereotype in my opinion that moves us backwards rather than supporting the push for integrated landscapes that many ecologists (including the authors of the reference) have been promoting. See the Landscapes for People Food and Nature Initiative (https://landscapes.ecoagriculture.org/) for one example; at the risk of tooting my own horn, see also the work on Ecology and Poverty edited by Ingram, DeClerck and Rumbaitis del Rio. Anyone looking at the ecological literature over the past 20 years will see a surge in ecological work that both considers the conservation value of agricultural landscapes (see the early work on Countryside Biogeography from Daily, Harvey, and others); as well as growing work on the functional contribution of conserved space on the provision of ecosystem services ranging from pollinator services (Kremen and many others), pest control (Tscharntke, Klein and others); human diseases such as lyme disease (Ostfeld and Keesing). In conservation biology this debate has also been considered largely settled with the recognition that conservation will fail under the sparing scenario in the face of climate change - maintaining space including connectivity options for wild biodiversity in managed landscapes is fundamental to protecting many of these species. While the topic is new, and some ecologists are demonstrating a healthy dose of skepticism, to say that ecologist systematically dismiss the idea ignores that ecologists originated the idea, and have been exploring it with growing interest over the past three decades.
What is also clear however is that novel ecosystems, and agricultural landscapes, while creating significant space for biodiversity conservation, are not a panacea; many of the species that conservation groups care deeply about simply will not survive in these landscapes. There is a value in wild places that should be maintained in the dialogue.
A central question related to this is sharing or sparing yes, but at what scale?? Its given that at a global scale, we are already operating in a sharing scenario. What about the field scale? Agroforestry systems which "share" crops with trees provide significant conservation benefit compared to disaggregating the two (sparing). We might also ask what the consequences to production systems are when we "spare them" with clear warning signs coming from the pollinator crisis in California - how much does agriculture depend on conservation - a growing body of research suggest much more than we think. What happens to other critical ecosystem services provided by agriculture under a sparing scenario? What about landscape scales? Conservation certainly benefits when large tracts of land are protected, but unless the land in between is shared, these reserves are threatened to become islands of conservation threatened by external pressures. Conservation depends on shared space in agricultural landscapes.
The CGIAR Water Land and Ecosystems Program sees a clear benefit of considering these issues at the basin scale by considering how different portions of basins contribute to conservation value, production values and livelihood values. The advantage of working at this scale is that it permits a more nuanced look at sharing and sparing. At the basin scale identifying conservation areas that not only provide a critical conservation space, but also provide important hydrological functions (flood control, flow regulation, fisheries, climate mitigation) is possible); as is identifying areas where agricultural potential is greatest. More importantly it allows us to begin to map out the interactions between the two - for example the role of conservation areas in providing water for agriculture at basin scales, the role of forest fragments in providing agroecological functions at landscape scales, and the role of field margin conservation and live fences in providing both connectivity for wild biodiversity, and pollination/pest control functions at field scales.
The clear advantage of the notion of sharing is exactly in its capacity to focus on interactions between agriculture and conservation, with a critical eye to the trade-offs; but probably more importantly magnifying the synergies.
Great post though I do have a couple of bones to pick. The argument that ecologist see no value in agroecosystems is rapidly evolving and an unfair (and largely out-dated) stereotype in my opinion that moves us backwards rather than supporting the push for integrated landscapes that many ecologists (including the authors of the reference) have been promoting. See the Landscapes for People Food and Nature Initiative (https://landscapes.ecoagriculture.org/) for one example; at the risk of tooting my own horn, see also the work on Ecology and Poverty edited by Ingram, DeClerck and Rumbaitis del Rio. Anyone looking at the ecological literature over the past 20 years will see a surge in ecological work that both considers the conservation value of agricultural landscapes (see the early work on Countryside Biogeography from Daily, Harvey, and others); as well as growing work on the functional contribution of conserved space on the provision of ecosystem services ranging from pollinator services (Kremen and many others), pest control (Tscharntke, Klein and others); human diseases such as lyme disease (Ostfeld and Keesing). In conservation biology this debate has also been considered largely settled with the recognition that conservation will fail under the sparing scenario in the face of climate change - maintaining space including connectivity options for wild biodiversity in managed landscapes is fundamental to protecting many of these species. While the topic is new, and some ecologists are demonstrating a healthy dose of skepticism, to say that ecologist systematically dismiss the idea ignores that ecologists originated the idea, and have been exploring it with growing interest over the past three decades.
What is also clear however is that novel ecosystems, and agricultural landscapes, while creating significant space for biodiversity conservation, are not a panacea; many of the species that conservation groups care deeply about simply will not survive in these landscapes. There is a value in wild places that should be maintained in the dialogue.
A central question related to this is sharing or sparing yes, but at what scale?? Its given that at a global scale, we are already operating in a sharing scenario. What about the field scale? Agroforestry systems which "share" crops with trees provide significant conservation benefit compared to disaggregating the two (sparing). We might also ask what the consequences to production systems are when we "spare them" with clear warning signs coming from the pollinator crisis in California - how much does agriculture depend on conservation - a growing body of research suggest much more than we think. What happens to other critical ecosystem services provided by agriculture under a sparing scenario? What about landscape scales? Conservation certainly benefits when large tracts of land are protected, but unless the land in between is shared, these reserves are threatened to become islands of conservation threatened by external pressures. Conservation depends on shared space in agricultural landscapes.
The CGIAR Water Land and Ecosystems Program sees a clear benefit of considering these issues at the basin scale by considering how different portions of basins contribute to conservation value, production values and livelihood values. The advantage of working at this scale is that it permits a more nuanced look at sharing and sparing. At the basin scale identifying conservation areas that not only provide a critical conservation space, but also provide important hydrological functions (flood control, flow regulation, fisheries, climate mitigation) is possible); as is identifying areas where agricultural potential is greatest. More importantly it allows us to begin to map out the interactions between the two - for example the role of conservation areas in providing water for agriculture at basin scales, the role of forest fragments in providing agroecological functions at landscape scales, and the role of field margin conservation and live fences in providing both connectivity for wild biodiversity, and pollination/pest control functions at field scales.
The clear advantage of the notion of sharing is exactly in its capacity to focus on interactions between agriculture and conservation, with a critical eye to the trade-offs; but probably more importantly magnifying the synergies.