The Fire-fighter’s Law: a conceptual tool to include nature conservation in on-farm planning

Summary

The interface between agriculture and nature conservation is undertaken mainly by two regulations in the EU. The Common Agricultural Policy including agri-environmental schemes regulates environmental assets in the agrarian landscape and the Natura 2000 network and Habitats Directive protects areas of special conservation interest. Agri-environmental policies are being designed and implemented differently among EUcountries and planning at farm level to accomplish the intentions in the regulations have been carried out to various degrees.
The development of a new Danish concept for design and implementation of nature conservation plans at the farm level is outlined and preliminary results are used to discuss the advantages and drawbacks of the concept. The approach is based on the integration of conservation priorities into farming practices through the 'Firefighter’s Law' as a metaphor for communication with the farmer. Priorities for on-farm nature considerations should be akin to the logic of a Firefighter’s priority list arriving at the scene of a fire: preservation, protection, restoration and construction of new habitats and landscape elements.
Preliminary results from testing the concept show that it is possible to combine this approach with farmer’s traditional ‘entrepeneurial’ approach, resulting in balanced and feasible solutions. However, the voluntary implementation of the recommendation is a major drawback for the present implementation of the concept. The habitat and landscape effects of Farm Nature Conservation Plans need to be monitored and evaluated and principles for this are outlined.