Naturally, at your service: - RSPB

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Case Studies – Hope Farm Hope Farm Hope Farm demonstrates how land, managed primarily for food production, can also deliver biodiversity benefits. The farm acts as a test bed for ideas to help protect our birds and other wildlife. Over the past 30 years, the UK’s farmland birds have suffered appalling losses, partly due to changing agricultural practices. In 1999, the RSPB bought a working lowland farm in Cambridgeshire to explore wildlife-friendly ways of farming on a typical arable property. Run as a commercial enterprise, Hope Farm is cropped in a pattern following those of other farm businesses on similar soil types. Yields are comparable to other farms in the area and financial returns have increased. Between 2000-2007, the numbers of farmland birds doubled on the farm whilst numbers in the wider UK landscape dropped by around six percent. This has been due to simple, cost-effective, measures that increase the insect and seed rich habitats on the farm, as well as nesting sites. Today, a critical challenge facing farmers is how to mitigate, or adapt their businesses to climate change. Farming contributes eight percent of the UK’s greenhouse gas emissions. In order to understand Hope Farm’s impact on the climate, the RSPB commissioned research to assess the farm’s carbon footprint. The biggest contribution to our farm carbon footprint arises from fertiliser use. We also discovered that emissions vary significantly between the crop types grown. Interestingly, environmental options designed to benefit wildlife, such as grass margins, are able to store carbon. The RSPB is currently investigating how farming operations can be adapted to reduce the footprint of the farm, whilst maintaining high yields and biodiversity. The work at Hope Farm demonstrates that, even where food production is a priority, it is still possible to have more than one valuable ecosystem service produced from the same area. Andy Hay (rspb-images.com) 28
Case Studies – Harapan Rainforest Harapan Rainforest, Indonesia Harapan Rainforest is managed for conservation but has the potential to deliver other valued services, especially greenhouse gas regulation. Curbing deforestation is a highly costeffective way of reducing emissions. Dieter Hoffman (rspb-images.com) Tropical forests have long been known to hold the planet's richest terrestrial biological diversity and thanks to the Stern report, their cost effective carbon storage and sequestration potential is increasingly recognised. Together with the Indonesian NGO Burung Indonesia and BirdLife International, the RSPB is involved in one of the largest rainforest restoration initiatives in the world, Harapan Rainforest. Harapan contains about one-fifth of the surviving area of Sumatran dry lowland forest, which is amongst the richest and most threatened habitats on Earth. This habitat type has been reduced by some 97 percent over the last century, and Marco Lambertini (rspb-images.com) the remaining three percent is being destroyed very rapidly. The project consortium has worked with the Indonesian Government to create an entirely new type of forestry licence, permitting ‘ecosystem restoration’ within production forests. The Harapan Rainforest project involves both the prevention of deforestation and forest restoration. When compared to the alternative land uses, the biodiversity benefits are considerable. Harapan Rainforest is a critical site for a wide range of forest-dependent wildlife, including all nine of Sumatra’s hornbill species, the agile gibbon, the Asian elephant and the critically endangered Sumatran tiger. The net carbon credit potential of the project will vary from year to year, but preliminary estimates indicate that, when compared to conversion alternatives, the benefit could be several hundred thousand tons of CO 2 per year. Apart from adding to climate change, conversion would impact indigenous people living in and around the project site. Traditionally, most local communities used the rainforest for gathering products such as rattan, resins, and honey for their own use and for trade. Conversion would reduce the availability of non-timber products and destroy their traditional way of life. Few forest-dependent people in central Sumatra are now able to follow a traditional way of life. Conservation and restoration also offer the potential for developing educational and recreational opportunities. 29
Page 1 and 2: Naturally, at your service: Why it
Page 3 and 4: Contents Foreword - The RSPB and ec
Page 5 and 6: Key messages and recommendations Na
Page 7 and 8: Ecosystem services refer to the vas
Page 9 and 10: Currently, global economic growth i
Page 11 and 12: 3a. Defining ecosystem services for
Page 13 and 14: Andy Hay (rspb-images.com) “ ”
Page 15 and 16: 3c. Winners and losers Environmenta
Page 17 and 18: Two key features of the ecosystem s
Page 19 and 20: If private decisions are to coincid
Page 21 and 22: Ecosystem services focus on the lin
Page 23 and 24: If global efforts to conserve biodi
Page 25 and 26: The MA concluded that any progress
Page 27 and 28: Thinking around ecosystem services
Page 29: Case Studies Valuing the Arc The ec
Page 33 and 34: Case Studies - The UK Uplands There
Page 35 and 36: Case Studies - UK Wetland UK Wetlan
Page 37 and 38: Case Studies - Wildlife recreation
Page 39 and 40: Acknowledgements The material in th

Naturally, at your service: - RSPB

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