The National Biodiversity Data Centre hosted a month-long (virtual) Festival of Farmland Biodiversity for May 2022. The Festival of Farmland Biodiversity focused on challenges to address the biodiversity crisis across much of the farmed landscape in Ireland.
The purpose of the Festival was to encourage a more positive engagement around the topic of biodiversity and farmland, and to highlight some of the ways that farmers are working to support biodiversity on their farms.
Changing the narrative around farmland biodiversity
Biodiversity and how farmland is managed are closely linked. Recent years have seen a reduction in the biodiversity value of farmland, and much of the variety and diversity which was once such a characteristic feature of the Irish countryside has been lost. But the Irish farming community presents an opportunity for arresting this decline. Farmers and their families can be a positive driver of change by ensuring that biodiversity features of value on their land are retained. These retained features could then be the basis upon which biodiversity enhancement measures could be delivered. Ensuring there is diversity in the Irish landscape is one important contribution that the farming community can make and are making to building resilience to address the challenges of climate change and biodiversity loss.
A framework for biodiversity action
A diverse landscape supporting biodiversity can be achieved by adopting a four-stage process for action:
- Retain existing biodiversity-friendly areas.
- Maintain existing areas through positive biodiversity-friendly management.
- Restore areas that once provided support for biodiversity.
- Create new biodiversity-friendly areas to enhance its biodiversity value.
See more information here.
