Mitigation of biodiversity loss and promotion of ecosystem servicesWP leader – University of Reading (UK), Simon Potts.Many potentially effective management options will not be part of contemporary forms of agriculture and are therefore not being examined in WP2. WP3 therefore uses an experimental approach to quantify the impact of different promising mitigation measures for enhancing ecosystem services. The types of measures being studied include novel options that are relevant to the on-going reform of the Common Agricultural Policy; they either feature as agri-environmental measures or as compulsory measures that are part of cross-compliance. The impact of mitigating biodiversity loss on ecosystem services will be explored where different management approaches are examined in different countries as stand-alone experiments, with experiments conducted, where feasible, in parallel in one country dominated by high intensity agricultural systems and one country dominated by low intensity agricultural systems; we acknowledge that most countries have a range of intensities but selecting the representative level of intensity will allow contrasts to be drawn. ![]() To properly assess the complex interactions between ecosystem services provided by on- and off-field mitigation, each WP3 experiment addressing a different management approach will do so using a common set of methodologies and will deliver datasets for the same suite of services. This way comparisons between studies can be made. Further, wherever possible the levels of services recorded (above- or below-ground or on- or off-field) will be standardised per unit area. To make sure project properly connects to the needs and perceptions of the farming community, prior to the start of the project we will organize stakeholder workshops to check that the details of the types of novel management practices we propose testing are compatible with real world farming methods. We will use this opportunity to find out about farmers’ understanding about ecosystem services, and what evidence or information they would find useful to inform future management decisions and also to check that our recommendations for new practices are validated as practically achievable. Objectives
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