Effectiveness of management agreements for farmland and meadow birds

The intensification of agriculture has led to a sharp decline in biodiversity in agricultural areas. In order to support biodiversity and more specifically bird populations on agricultural land, the Flemish Land Agency (VLM) has been concluding 5-year management agreements with farmers for some time now.

INBO has been monitoring farmland birds on behalf of VLM since 2010. Recent analyses show that the management agreements do not deliver the expected results.

The INBO-PDPO monitoring network registers the situation and detects trends in farmland birds. However, it has not been developed to explain these trends. The applied management agreements aim to address the 3 most important bottlenecks for bird species in the Flemish agricultural area:
(i) lack of suitable breeding area,
(ii) lack of suitable and sufficient summer food and
(iii) lack of suitable winter food (for wintering species).

Therefore, in this research project we want to perform the necessary explanatory research on the effectiveness of management agreements in function of these bottlenecks in order to identify shortcomings and to propose appropriate measures (adapted or new management agreements).