A simplified classification of land-type zones to assist the integration of biodiversity objectives in land-use policies Original Research Article

For nature conservation to be successful, it needs to be integrated into land-use policies over wide areas (i.e. outside those protected areas where it is itself the prime land-use), particularly agricultural policy. The integration of biodiversity aspects into cross-sectoral policies is a core of the Convention on Biological Diversity and other international commitments, and has been adopted by the UK government. One of the most important ways of conserving biological diversity is to maintain and restore characteristic regional features. To assist this, there is a need to zone the country, because measures appropriate for nature conservation and farming in one region could easily be inappropriate for both in another. Eight broad land-type zones in Great Britain are identified to enable linking of national and international land-use policies and regional practices, particularly agricultural, to the wildlife interest that these affect. These zones are based on environmentally imposed potential, rather than actual land-use or vegetation cover. The zones should therefore have some stability. The distribution of these zones is compared with the distributions of bird assemblages to illustrate their relevance to nature conservation. As a pointer to future work needs, examples of main actual and potential nature conservation interest in each zone are linked to farming enterprises and the agricultural policies which underlie these.