Agri-environment scheme query

Agri-environment schemes (AES) have been around since the early 1990s, but some environmental bodies have joined farmers in questioning how effective the current approach is at boosting biodiversity levels.

The schemes reward land managers for following guidelines on how to make their land more suitable for wildlife. The schemes are funded with public money and can be expensive - the Scottish Agri-Environment Climate Scheme costing taxpayers around £50 million a year from 2014-20.

But with agri-environment and wider policy schemes currently under review, the Game & Wildlife Conservation Trust (GWCT) is encouraging farmers to take part in an international survey aimed at assessing the effectiveness of current schemes.

“Agri-environment schemes may cost the taxpayer a lot, but consensus from research to date has largely been that they don’t make a huge difference,” said head of lowland research, Dr Dave Parish.

Parish said that there had been lots of suggestions why the schemes had not been more successful. Some felt the options in the schemes didn’t always work while others felt the measures were often too rigid in how they must be implemented.

He said GWCT-led ‘Interreg NSR PARTRIDGE’ project was seeking views from land managers and looking at reasons for joining or not AES, how the options available could be improved, and what else the sector would like to see offered in the future.

The survey can be found at: https://northsearegion.eu/partridge/.