A new study by researchers at the University of Oxford, working alongside Duurzame Zuivelketen (DZK), has outlined how the agriculture sector can ‘better contribute to global biodiversity targets without causing unintended harms’.
The study, Towards positive net outcomes for biodiversity, and developing safeguards to accompany headline biodiversity indicators, which was published in npj Biodiversity, utilised data from the Dutch dairy industry – including close to 8,950 farms and approximately 1.6 million cows – to develop a scoring system to measure biodiversity impacts in relation to possible sector-wide targets.
It found that while a single score can be useful when tracking overall progress, this approach can mask environmental impacts such as nutrient pollution and habitat loss.
Safeguarding solutions
The researchers proposed a series of safeguards, or ‘clear, quantitative thresholds for major environmental pressures’ to ensure that progress made in one environmental area does not come at the expense of another.
“Our study shows that – though they are extremely useful – relying on simplified, combined indicators to track agricultural impacts on biodiversity can mislead if used alone,” commented lead author Joseph Bull, associate professor at the University of Oxford’s Department of Biology.
“By introducing scientifically grounded safeguards, we can ensure that improvements in one area don’t cause damage somewhere else.”
The team assessed biodiversity losses by combining data on environmental pressures, including greenhouse gas emissions, land use change, and ammonia emissions, into a composite index. Their research determined that much of the biodiversity impact was actually taking place outside the Netherlands, especially in areas where land was cleared to produce livestock feed.
‘These imported feeds were responsible for the largest share of land transformation impacts, and consequently biodiversity loss,’ the study found.
‘Many pathways’
“This study was an interesting test of whether single biodiversity impact scores, that capture many pathways causing biodiversity loss, are practical to implement and reliable,” added co-author Dr Joseph Poore, Department of Biology, University of Oxford.
“Our results generally found that these indicators serve a very useful role and the science is advancing fast. Soon we will probably know the biodiversity impacts of every product we buy in the shops and the biodiversity impacts of businesses and their choices. While not the solution to these problems in itself, this is certainly a step towards solving them.” Read more here.
