1. Introduction: the need for this project

1.1 - The Convention on Biological Diversity and Agricultural Biodiversity

The Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) is the main international instrument for conservation of biodiversity. It commits signatories like New Zealand to co-operation, benefit sharing and equity in a collective response to the global environmental crisis. Biodiversity as emphasised by the CBD concerns variation in both taxa and ecosystems and the ecological processes that maintain the resilience and adaptability of ecological communities and ecosystems. The CBD focus is therefore broader than just preventing the extinction of individual species, subspecies, races or cultivars - it seeks to sustain the underlying processes (e.g. energy and nutrient transfers, evolution, population growth and regulation, community succession) that allow life to continue and respond to disturbance and change. We are within the sixth large extinction event that has been documented over geological times and such a crisis situation requires large-scale responses (Leakey and Lewin 1996). The global environmental crisis stems from altered (usually increased) ecological disturbance as well as decreased ability of the ecosystems to respond to that change. Safeguarding the underlying generic ecological processes is therefore a pragmatic and essential priority that complements the overwhelming and depressing task of trying to save an ever-increasing list of endangered individual plant and animal species, usually with inadequate knowledge or resources for the task.

Much of the thrust of the CBD stemmed from 'Agenda 21', a policy statement upheld by the 1992 Rio Conference. Chapter 14 of Agenda 21 concerns Agricultural Biodiversity, which it defines thus1:

"For the purposes of the Convention, agricultural biological diversity means the variability among living organisms associated with cultivating crops and rearing animals and the ecological complexes of which they are part; this includes diversity within species, between species, and of ecosystems. The unique feature of agricultural biological diversity is the emphasis on its utility to human beings".

The CBD emphasises the need to conserve biodiversity partly for it's own sake (the intrinsic value motivation) but also to support the bio-economy of humans. The need to feed burgeoning human populations by fostering highly productive agriculture is repeatedly stated as a prime motivation for the CBD, along with recognition that this is the source of part of the global environmental crisis. For example2:

"overwhelming evidence leads to the conclusion that modern commercial agriculture has had a direct negative impact on biodiversity at all levels: ecosystem, species and genetic; and on both natural and domestic diversity. On the other hand, modern intensive agriculture has made it possible for the ever-increasing human population to be fed without the extensive destruction of habitats to provide the needed food. While agriculture has both positive and negative impacts, it also depends upon biological diversity for its continued existence. Hence, promoting sustainable agriculture requires the conservation and sustainable use of biological diversity. But this diversity is currently being threatened by the very activities that depend upon it".

Maximising productivity is thus seen as an essential strategy to minimise the amount of conversion of 'natural' habitats to agricultural land. But there is also an important emphasis on integrating use with biodiversity protection within agricultural landscapes so that a genuinely ecologically sustainable but highly productive harvest is taken. This is to be achieved in two ways - by caring for the biodiversity living on the actual land used for growing crops or grazing stock, and by ensuring that sufficient integrated reserves of less intensively managed, unmodified and more 'natural' habitat are retained within the overall ecological landscape. This often involves retention of wetlands, riparian areas, hedgerows, herbaceous leys, and forest patches irrespective of whether exotic or indigenous species predominate. Such areas provide many more benefits besides biodiversity, many of which have direct economic relevance. Conserving biodiversity in agricultural landscapes is seen as essential to maintaining production of foods and fibre for human use, as well as to support ecosystem health and resilience to future changes (e.g. climate change).

1.2 - Conferences of parties calls for 'case studies' in four focal areas

Signatories meet regularly for Conferences of Parties (COPs) to decide on collective actions to put the CBD into action. COP4 (1998; Bratislava) and COP5 (2000; Nairobi) decided that signatory countries should help each other by preparing 'Case Studies' that recorded individual country's experiences in conserving agricultural biodiversity (Appendix A and B). These case studies are to be placed on the CBD website to facilitate international access and maximise success by learning from each other on what does and does not work, and how individual countries are meeting their CBD commitments.

Four focal areas chosen by the COPs were pollinators, soil biota, integrated landscape & farming systems, and sustainable forestry management. MAF have decided to identify potential case studies from New Zealand within these areas.

The focal areas operate at very different spatial and process scales. 'Landscape' provides the ecological and social context within which everything - including the three other focal areas - should be seen. Forestry is habitat defined at a very generic level (places where tall woody vegetation predominates). Pollinators are spread everywhere but the focus is on an ecosystem service. Soil biota occupy a physical layer throughout all habitats and areas. The latter 3 areas chosen for detailed examination cannot represent complete coverage on environmental areas of concern, nor do they signal their relative ecological importance to one another or other issues. For example the litter layer forges ecologically important links between soil ecology and formation and the rest of the ecosystem but is not considered in detail here or the CBD. Some aspects from different focal areas meld, but they are not equally important to one another. For example pollinators are generally less important in predominantly exotic forest plantations because gymnosperms are mainly wind pollinated. Narrowing focus to parts of the problem is a pragmatic step to simplify a vast problem into smaller manageable pieces. Accordingly the choice of focal areas has been necessary, if somewhat arbitrary. The most holistic overview of New Zealand ecology and agricultural biodiversity in this review appears in the integrated landscape focal area. Secondary emphasis on the other three focal areas is a response to meet the specific agenda of the CBD COP decisions.

1.3 - Knowledge gap analysis

Case studies are potentially valuable building blocks to assessing progress and lessons and reflect the reductionist way that people often go about applying bigger, more generic approaches. But if New Zealand is to better safeguard its agricultural biodiversity it also needs to review the whole. A measure on how well it is doing in nurturing agricultural biodiversity is a stepping-stone to identify ways to improve practice in future. The international experience has emphasised that action to protect and enhance biodiversity is often constrained by:

  • inadequate resources3,
  • a lack of time to succeed before irreversible degradation occurs4,
  • ecological constraints on restoration5, and
  • a lack of sufficient social and political will to make the difficult decisions to act in the long-term interests of plants and animals and future generations of humans.

But even if the will, resources and time to repair damaged ecosystems are in place, conservation action is also constrained by lack of knowledge of what to do.

The 'knowledge gap' makes it all the harder to prioritise actions to best use the few available resources by identifying where and when to act immediately. Although we have a fine tradition of research on determinants of agricultural production, until recently there has been relatively little attention to biodiversity in highly managed and disturbed landscapes.

A quest to fill all gaps in knowledge of biodiversity in agricultural landscapes will be never ending. This report reviews current understandings gained from research, adaptive management and practice of farmers and horticulturalists, scientists and managers, Maori and non-Maori. This project seeks to identify potentially critical gaps in current understanding of agricultural biodiversity in New Zealand that are not currently under investigation. This assessment is urgently needed and important as a guide to where to start a much longer journey.

An immediate reason for this research is to better meet New Zealand's commitments to the CBD, but its longer term goal is to help New Zealanders appreciate, know and care for biodiversity in production landscapes as fervently as they care for our National Parks - the icons of the New Zealand preservation ethic.

1.4 - Objectives of this project

A team of four ecologists with particular experience with biodiversity conservation6 were contracted to 

  1. evaluate MAF's biodiversity obligations to the CBD, 
  2. identify needs and gaps in understanding so that MAF can better meet those obligations in future, and 
  3. facilitate the preparation of New Zealand Case Studies concerning soil biota, pollinators, sustainable forestry, and integrated landscape and farming systems.

These goals were to be achieved by meeting three objectives:

Objective 1: Review literature and existing research underway relevant to MAF's CBD commitments, by preparing 

  1. a brief report synthesising the main constructs of the Ecosystem Management approach and the CBD to define key concepts and words; 
  2. an annotated bibliography (containing abstracts and key words) for research and case studies mainly from New Zealand; and 
  3. an electronic database that can be searched by keywords to sort references, key contact personnel, districts/areas, phylogenetic groupings by the key concepts.

Objective 2: Identify gaps in knowledge and a prioritised research agenda to meet New Zealand's CBD commitments, by using the database created in objective 1 to prepare a scientific report outlining 

  1. expectations of the CBD, 
  2. existing knowledge, 
  3. ongoing contracted research that is likely to fill expectations of the CBD in the near future, 
  4. remaining gaps (uncovered expectations), ranked in importance and urgency, and 
  5. a prioritised research agenda for plugging those gaps.

Objective 3: Identify the critical elements of an effective Case Study and suggest potential case studies for New Zealand to contribute to the CBD clearing house mechanism7 in some or all of the Soil Biota, Pollinator, Forestry, or Integrated landscape and farming focal areas.

A separate report (Moller et al. 2001) and the associated Endnote(tm) database called 'CBD_NZ_1.enl', fulfil Objective 1. That report should be read together with this one for detailed analysis, but each is designed to be understandable if read alone. The first report only briefly covers the overarching concepts of the CBD, Ecosystem management and Agricultural biodiversity before listing the detail of relevant publications, research projects and applications described in the database. It also details how to operate the Endnote program to search for specific subsets of information that might be required by agricultural managers, policy makers and research scientists. This second report provides more depth on overarching concepts and the synthesis required to meet objectives 2 and 3 in particular.

Copies of the database and two companion reports are available on Compact Disk from the Information Bureau, MAF, P.O. Box 2526, Wellington, New Zealand.

1.5 - STRUCTURE OF THIS REPORT

The CBD adopted the Ecosystem Management approach to conservation. This fundamental choice has several implications for policy, research, scope and application of biodiversity protection and enhancement and therefore for the perception of research gaps and priorities. We therefore must first outline the principles of the Ecosystem Management Approach in some detail (Section 2) before reviewing New Zealand's ecological and evolutionary history and the way it potentially affects relative emphases when applying CBD approaches in New Zealand (Section 3). A variety of general approaches to obtaining reliable knowledge to guide management of biodiversity in New Zealand's agricultural landscapes is considered next (Section 4). That review borrows heavily from an existing National Science Strategy statement on Sustainable Land Management which is extremely pertinent to setting priorities and research styles for the CBD agenda. But we also consider adaptive management as a complementary alternative to classic science research as a potential vehicle to better safeguard agricultural biodiversity. Reviews of ecology, management and existing research within Integrated landscapes (Section 5), Forestry (Section 6), Soil Biota (Section 7) and Pollinators (Section 8) are presented to identify knowledge gaps, prioritise research and suggest potential CBD case studies within each focal area. A general discussion (Section 9) then synthesises the main strands and melds research and case study ranks from all focal areas into a single prioritised list. We end our review by considering how well New Zealand is doing in meeting CBD goals and considering prospects for the future.

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