Working landscapes and native habitats for ensuring benefits for food security and nature’s contributions to people

GARIBALDI, LUCAS A.

Turrialba

Conferencia; VIII Scientific Wallace Conference; 2023

CATIE

The expansion of homogeneous landscapes has been a major driver of biodiversity loss,climate change, and land degradation. There is an urgent need for a transition tomultifunctional landscapes that provide abundant and nutritious food, as well as severalother contributions essential for a good quality of life. However, it is unclear how toimplement this process, especially in large-scale farming without economic subsidies. Idiscuss guidelines for a transition to multifunctional landscapes based on science andexperience on real farms. In this transition, practitioners manage crop fields, naturalhabitats, and field edges. I present an iterative process for designing multifunctionallandscapes.First, areas with low opportunity cost (e.g., low crop productivity) or high appreciationof nature (e.g., in the vicinity of housing areas) are identified at a fine-scale resolutionand classified into "wide" areas or "narrow" corridors (i.e., edges less than 100m wide).Then, natural-habitat restoration (at least 20% of farmland) is assigned to wide areas (andthose areas with remnants of native species irrespective of size), and biological corridorsare designated for edges (at least 10% of farmland designed to be 50-100m wide). Fieldsize and configuration are redesigned to increase the efficiency of agricultural practicesand edge density (e.g., smaller fields with strip cropping following environmentalheterogeneity instead of large, squared monocultures).Finally, this design is adjusted over time through interaction with stakeholders, accordingto cost-benefit analyses, and a process of monitoring, evaluation, and co-learning.Overall, I describe an iterative process through which large-scale farming can supportbiodiversity, leverage nature´s contributions to people, provide more nutritious food, andstabilize crop yields and profits. Multifunctional landscapes will be critical in achievingthe targets of the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework by 2030 andmoving the world toward net-zero emissions by 2050.