Towards Safeguarding New Zealand's Agricultural Biodiversity: Research Gaps, Priorities and Potential Case Studies

A contract report to the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry:

"Biodiversity Policy and Research to meet Convention on Biological Diversity Commitments" (Project EI-30/2000).

By

Chris Perley1, Henrik Moller2, John Hutcheson3 and William Hamilton3

1 Chris Perley & Associates, P.O. Box 7116, Dunedin.
2 Ecosystems Consultants Ltd., P.O. Box 6161, Dunedin.
3 Biological Systems Ltd., 2 Wharetoroa Drive, RD 4, Rotorua.

Ecosystems Consultants Report Number 23

June 2001

drawing of New Zealand's agricultural landscapes as they are now

drawing of New Zealand's agricultural landscapes how they must become

Frontispiece: A drawing of New Zealand's agricultural landscapes as they are now (upper) and how they must become (lower) to safeguard biodiversity (Meurk & Swaffield 2000, Copyright (2000), with permission from Elsevier Science).

Executive Summary

This review of knowledge, current research, applications, management and policy to safeguard agricultural biodiversity in New Zealand was motivated by the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry (MAF)'s wish to better meet New Zealand's commitments to the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD). For the purposes of the CBD, 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, including diversity within species, between species, and of ecosystems. The imperative to conserve agricultural biodiversity is motivated by its intrinsic value, but partly also by a wish to sustain highly productive agriculture to support the bio-economy of humans. Maintaining productivity is essential to minimise 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 is retained within the overall ecological landscape.

This research had three objectives: 

  1. Review literature and existing research underway relevant to MAF's CBD commitments, by preparing a report, an annotated bibliography and an electronic database of publications, current research projects and applications; 
  2. Identify gaps in knowledge and a prioritised research agenda to meet New Zealand's CBD commitments, and 
  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 mechanism in some or all of four focal areas (Soil Biota, Pollinator, Forestry, and Integrated landscape and farming).

A separate report and the associated database fulfil the first objective. That report should be read together with this one for detailed analysis to meet objectives ii and iii. 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.

Ecosystem Management Shows the Way Forward

Ecosystem Management is the agreed approach of the CBD and the structure on which this review is based. This recognises biodiversity as organised into ecological hierarchies of landscapes, systems, communities and species that must define the way research, policy and management units are recognised. A predominantly multi-species approach is taken to safeguard processes and functions of ecosystems and a multi-disciplinary approach is essential to find a lasting solution to the current environmental crisis. Bottom-up, local, participatory action methods are seen as the best chance to achieve a socially, economically and ecologically sustainable solution to environmental problems. Inclusion of humans as part of ecosystems leads to corollaries that human-excluded preserves are but one approach to biodiversity conservation and that the human use of resources is not necessarily dangerous to ecosystem health.

Ecosystem Management is especially congruent with rural community environmental philosophies and practices. It offers by far the best opportunity for significant gains for agricultural biodiversity in New Zealand where private ownership predominates and individual owner's environmental stewardship must take the place of the centralised top-down approach to conservation exercised by the Department of Conservation on public lands. Despite its value, Ecosystem Management has thus far been poorly applied to safeguard New Zealand's biodiversity. This failure is partly a reflection of a preservation philosophy formed in reaction to our pioneer history of broad-scale clearance of natural habitats for intensive production. An appropriate emergency response then to this habitat despoliation was imposition of an allocation model of preservation for conservation in one place and use elsewhere. Unfortunately, an 'integration model' (where wise use protects or even enhances biodiversity) has been neglected despite the halting of broad-scale habitat destruction. MAF will now have to make strenuous efforts to advocate and inform New Zealand society of the urgent need to integrate sustainable use and protection or enhancement, and of the need to value and care for highly managed and modified landscapes. To not do so will miss the opportunity to sustain biodiversity over the majority of New Zealand. Agricultural landscapes are where most people see and interact with plants and animals so responsible environmental stewardship there offers the best chance of building a sustainable land-ethic. Biodiversity abounds in lowland, fertile and warm sites like those predominantly under agricultural management. Widespread localised endemism, particularly as seen in invertebrates dictates that protection and enhancement must extend into these landscapes to stop the slide of yet more species to extinction.

SPECIAL FEATURES OF NEW ZEALAND'S BIOTA AND CONSERVATION PREDICAMENT

New Zealand's isolated position and ecological history, and the introduced nature of her production systems and current conservation threats make some research and management priorities different from other countries in several ways, including:

  • A need to better understand the biodiversity attributes of the systems that are recognised by land managers by obtaining comparative data on insect communities
  • Active management to control introduced predators must be continually applied
  • Particular emphasis should be placed on biosecurity
  • Removal of grazing stock from some areas is needed to safeguard population recruitment of indigenous plants
  • Biocontrol is potentially particularly effective and valuable
  • Seral vegetation is particularly important
  • New Zealand plants are particularly vulnerable to disturbance by fire
  • Habitat restoration is particularly important in agricultural landscapes
  • Careful attention to threatened species as urgent priorities for management must be retained.

Ecosystem management will never totally replace strongly focused individual threatened species research and management priorities in New Zealand. But equally single-species focus on rare or threatened species should not wholly supplant an Ecosystem Management approach to safeguard the overall system and thereby prevent yet more species declines. This review concludes that New Zealand has largely failed in applying the Ecosystem Management framework and that its CBD commitments could act as a spur to finally get it underway. MAF therefore have a much bigger opportunity and challenge than simply safeguarding agricultural biodiversity - the Ministry can also facilitate a broadening and maturation of New Zealand's conservation philosophy in a way that will connect its people to the land and a responsible land ethic.

AN URGENT NEED FOR RESEARCH AND ADAPTIVE MANAGEMENT TO PLUG KNOWLEDGE GAPS

Neglect of a biodiversity perspective in research of agricultural landscapes has led to a huge 'knowledge gap' on how to best protect and enhance it as quickly and cheaply as possible. Classic scientific research is expensive and slow, so an active adaptive management approach is suggested to supplement pure research approaches. However MAF will have to provide trained 'process professionals' and centralised co-ordination to capture knowledge and learning from rigorously planned and executed adaptive management programmes. An intermediate course between adaptive management and research is recommended. Within the latter some long-term fundamental research to understand predominating ecological processes affecting agricultural biodiversity will need to be retained along with shorter term, more focused studies that solve immediate problems. The National Science Strategy Committee statement on Sustainable Land Management (1996) offers a splendid platform to launch and prioritise research emphases, but there needs to be a much more detailed research programme on biodiversity itself within land use categories or problems recognised by land managers. MAF can gain a head start by reactivating and advocating the Sustainable Land Management strategy for policy and research provided the concrete links between land use and biodiversity are added to the priority setting structure.

Specific knowledge gaps are identified in four focal areas (Landscapes, Forestry, Pollinators and Soil biota) in Sections 5 to 8 of this report, before being collated in Table 3.

The optimum shape of an agricultural biodiversity research portfolio is extremely difficult to determine in detail until the available budget is known. The severe knowledge gap of the biodiversity qualities of our production systems impedes understanding of how best to guide management. Accordingly as many research and adaptive management projects should be mounted as resources will allow. Topics are initially selected using the importance rankings given in Table 3. There are many high value focussed research topics but if only a small programme can be initiated this should still be directed at the overall gap of better understanding of the biodiversity qualities of the systems within the agricultural landscape. Such a programme can exist at several scales and can simply be scaled down geographically or taxonomically if resources are inadequate for a comprehensive response.

A COMPREHENSIVE RESEARCH PORTFOLIO

A more comprehensive and cohesive research and adaptive management programme, probably requiring an annual investment of millions of dollars, could be planned once approximate budget allocations are known. This portfolio should:

  1. be multidisciplinary and use the principles of Ecosystem Management
  2. include some long-term study
  3. focus on the direct biodiversity ecological linkages to land use issues and categories recognised by land use managers
  4. evaluate the value to indigenous biota of the various introduced systems within the agricultural landscape
  5. generally be multi-species in approach, but include some threatened species programmes that illustrate general models for complementing biodiversity protection and land use
  6. target abundant and widespread systems (as recognised by their dominant vegetation species) in agricultural landscapes because these are the ecologically most important
  7. consider potential/eventual impact as equally important to current ecological importance
  8. target support to endemic species as more important than exotic ones, but not to the exclusion of valuable exotic species that potentially enhance agricultural biodiversity
  9. evaluate ecological effects of homogenisation and intensification of land use
  10. assign higher priority to researching soil biota and landscape issues than to forestry and pollinator concerns
  11. study generic processes in both forestry and agricultural landscapes so that each habitat regime gains some specific closely targeted information while contributing more thematic understandings to the other
  12. include research on the obstacles and necessary criteria for success of rigorous adaptive management

CASE STUDIES FOR THE CBD WEBSITE

We urge that a high proportion of case studies presented by New Zealand from now on should be comprehensive and integrative in scope. Particularly salient and tightly focused projects are still potentially valuable to expose detail, but we recommend that they become the second priority once the overall New Zealand lessons are presented in a cohesive review. If resources allow, MAF should prepare at least one New Zealand review in each of the four focal areas before any other smaller reviews are added. Approximately 100 valuable case studies have been identified and are tabulated in Appendix E. A strong and cost effective portfolio of case studies should be submitted that includes:

  • the social dimension of ecosystem management
  • a wide range of topics to illustrate the divergent spatial and ecological process scales
  • well defined science understanding as crucial to the case's success
  • both strong application and strong research acting together
  • ongoing learning as a planned part of the process
  • links to research gaps identified for other agendas in this contract research brief
  • examples of the way threatened species are being managed in production landscapes
  • examples from all ends of the continuum between intensive cropping and horticulture to pastoralism
  • examination of parallel issues in Australia and the Pacific (shared biogeography and similar societies may make the experiences in New Zealand particularly relevant and valuable for our closer neighbours)
  • reports of experience of local experts that can write with authority and speed.

There are many other ways that New Zealand can meet its commitments to knowledge and benefit sharing with other parties to the CBD other than providing case studies. Examples of training taxonomists, sharing knowledge on crop pollination, and running workshops for international colleagues are given in Table 2 for pollination problems.

PROSPECTS FOR AGRICULTURAL BIODIVERSITY

Early studies suggest several economic initiatives within the agricultural landscape are positive for biodiversity. However, application of Ecosystem Management and building support for agricultural biodiversity will demand much more than simply providing case studies or funding a few biodiversity research projects. Immediate tasks set by the CBD can be relatively easily and cheaply met, but the really difficult work will demand changed attitudes and a sustained ball-park increase in investment to understand ecological processes in New Zealand's agricultural landscapes. If real long-lasting attitudinal changes are to be facilitated, MAF will need to conduct honest and potentially severe re-examination of some core cultural values and approaches. Appointment of a team of ecologists to help guide policy and guide biodiversity research would help the necessary culture change. MAF will need to work actively to facilitate a re-integration of effort from diverse stakeholders divided amongst government departments, between scientists managers and policy makers, and between concerned New Zealanders operating at central, regional and local levels to safeguard agricultural biodiversity. MAF is the natural lead agency to facilitate an overdue effort to achieve conservation through sustainable land use in New Zealand.

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