New Zealand Journal of Agricultural Research abstracts

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Intensification of New Zealand agriculture: implications for biodiversity

Henrik Moller^1,*

Catriona J. MacLeod²

Julia Haggerty³

Chris Rosin¹

Grant Blackwell¹

Chris Perley¹

Sarah Meadows³

Florian Weller³

Markus Gradwohl³

¹Agriculture Research Group on Sustainability
University of Otago
PO Box 56
Dunedin 9054, New Zealand

²Landcare Research
PO Box 69
Lincoln 7647, New Zealand

³Centre for Study of Agriculture Food and Environment
University of Otago
PO Box 56
Dunedin 9054, New Zealand

^*Author for correspondence:
henrik.moller@stonebow.otago.ac.nz

Abstract Intensification of New Zealand agricultural practices is an ongoing and accelerating process which potentially threatens the environment, biodiversity and even the sustainability of agricultural production. However, neither the exact nature of this threat nor the extent of its impact has received adequate analysis. There is clear evidence that agricultural intensification has degraded aquatic biodiversity, but there is a critical lack of research and monitoring of robust indicators of terrestrial biodiversity in New Zealand production landscapes. Therefore, we can only infer a generalised likelihood that intensification has also reduced terrestrial biodiversity and agro-ecosystem resilience. It is unknown whether biodiversity and ecological services provided by the actual land growing crops, pasture or wood fibre are degrading because of intensification. Increased use of ecological subsidies (nutrient and energy inputs) may have compensated, at least in part, for the increased rate of food production (nutrient and energy outputs). Lasting practical solutions to enhance sustainability can only be identified by long-term transdisciplinary research of ecological disturbance in agro-ecosystems. Working with intensification to identify environmental and social gains at the same time as capturing economic efficiencies is more likely to support biodiversity than simply attempting to stem or reverse intensification. A change in world view of both rural and urban dwellers, from the predominant philosophy that allocates land to either preservation or production to one that promotes sustainable land-use practices that integrate extractive resource use with conservation, is the key to mitigating impacts of agricultural intensification in modified landscapes.

Keywords biodiversity conservation; intensification; indicators; New Zealand agriculture

A07009 ; Online publication date 15 July 2008; Received 30 January 2007; accepted 3 June 2008

New Zealand Journal of Agricultural Research, 2008, Vol. 51: 253–263
0028–8233/08/5103–0253 © The Royal Society of New Zealand 2008

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