1
A farmland biodiversity strategy is needed for China 1
Authors: Li Li
1
, Ruocheng Hu
1,2
, Jikun Huang
3
, Matthias Bürgi
4
, Ziyun Zhu
1
, Zhi Lü
1,2*
2
Affiliations: 3
1
Center for Nature and Society, School of Life Sciences, Peking University, Yiheyuan Road 4
5, Haidian District, Beijing 100871, China. 5
2
Shan Shui Conservation Center, Yiheyuan Road 5, Haidian District, Beijing 100871, China. 6
3
China Center for Agricultural Policy, School of Advanced Agricultural Sciences, Peking 7
University, 5 Yiheyuan Road, Haidian District, Beijing 100871, China. 8
4
Research Unit Land Change Science, Swiss Federal Research Institute WSL, Zürcherstraße 9
111, Birmensdorf 8903, Switzerland.
10
*Correspondence to: luzhi@pku.edu.cn
11
12
This document is the accepted manuscript version of the following article:
Li, L., Hu, R., Huang, J., Bürgi, M., Zhu, Z., Zhong, J., & Lü, Z. (2020). A
farmland biodiversity strategy is needed for China. Nature Ecology & Evolution.
https://doi.org/10.1038/s41559-020-1161-2
2
Abstract: 13
Countrywide citizen science data show the importance of farmland outside protected areas 14
for China's avifauna. We urge the government of China to develop a national strategy for 15
policy and research to protect biodiversity and traditional knowledge of sustainable 16
agriculture to meet the post-2020 goal of the Convention on Biological Diversity. 17
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Main Text: 19
Agricultural lands take up to a third of the earth’s terrestrial surface. In recent decades, the 20
expansion and intensification of agricultural land, triggered by the continuous increase in 21
human population and dietary changes, has become one of the direct drivers of Anthropocene 22
biodiversity loss
1
. The expansion of agricultural production, however, has neither always nor 23
everywhere taken place at the expense of biodiversity. Instead, over the course of centuries of 24
development of agricultural practices, a significant number of wild species have adapted or 25
even become dependent on farmland habitats. The exact characteristics of agricultural 26
development are, therefore, relevant to the fate of global biodiversity, and wildlife-friendly 27
farmlands should be considered as valuable ecosystems. Half of the globe’s agricultural lands 28
are distributed in the 17 megadiverse countries, of which China possesses the largest share of 29
the world’s agricultural lands at 9.9% of the global total
2,3
. With its long cultivation history, 30
China has accumulated rich knowledge with regard to sustainable intensive agricultural 31
practices at small scales. The modernization of agriculture in China in recent decades, despite 32
its remarkable success at feeding its large population, has led to the rapid extinction of 33
diverse land-use practices, threatening the coupling of social and ecological systems
4
. 34
Unfortunately, China’s National Biodiversity Strategies and Action Plan (NBSAP) for the 35
Convention on Biological Conservation (CBD) fails to recognize traditional agriculture as an 36
3
asset for biodiversity conservation bearing its unique cultural heritage
5
, nor the drastic change 37
in agricultural practice as one of the causes of domestic biodiversity loss. 38
39
Overlooked biodiversity value of farmlands 40
Typically, the value of farmland is considered with regard to food production. China's 41
agricultural policies primarily target this production function of farmland. In China's country 42
enforcement reports for CBD, biodiversity in the agricultural sector related to farmland is 43
exclusively interpreted in terms of genetic resource conservation, invasive species and pest 44
control. The term “biodiversity” was not mentioned in the annual budget of the Ministry of 45
Agriculture and Rural Affairs
6
. China's newly developed land-use planning scheme, “Major 46
Function-Oriented Zones”, aimed at optimizing the state’s spatial development pattern in a 47
top-down approach by assigning the territorial space to four types based on development 48
intensity: development-optimized areas, development-prioritized areas, development-49
restricted areas, and development-prohibited areas
7
. Each area is assigned to one of the four 50
major functions serving for industrial or urban development, food production, or ecosystem 51
services provisioning
7
. Although biodiversity in development-restricted areas may benefit 52
from strictly regulated land-use intensity, this land-use planning policy has led to the 53
segregation of lands for nature conservation and agricultural production. In other words, 54
under the current land-use policy arrangement in China, only lands designated as Nature 55
Reserve are recognized for sustaining biodiversity
8
. 56
57
High biodiversity in China’s farmlands 58
Agriculture takes the most fertile lands in China which also provide abundant resources for 59
associated wild species (Fig. 1a). According to remote sensing data, cultivated landscapes 60
covered 1.79 million km
2
in 2015
9
, i.e., almost twice as much as China’s National Nature 61
4
Reserves, stretching over 0.97 million km
2 10
. Data to assess biodiversity distribution in 62
China’s farmlands is overall very limited. However, blooming citizen science approaches on 63
bird species resulted in the most comprehensive nationwide avian database with fine-64
resolution and up-to-date information on species occurrences collectively compiled by over 65
7,000 bird watchers
11
. Although abundance data remain insufficient in the citizen science 66
database, regional study in Europe has reported congruent trends of avian richness and 67
abundance influenced by different farmland management regimes
12
. Using these bird data as 68
the best available biodiversity indicator, we simulated potential habitats of 1,111 avian 69
species, including 167 national-protected species and 70 threatened species (see 70
Supplementary Methods). Nearly 25% of the national-protected species and 20% of the 71
threatened species use farmland as habitat (See Supplementary Methods, Supplementary 72
Table 1). Looking at the top 17% (the Aichi Target 11) and 50% (the “Half-Earth” 73
Advocacy
12
) simulated avian-species-rich pixels (1-km grain size), the ratio of cultivated 74
landscapes or National Nature Reserves to the 17% and 50% pixel areas increases from 75
15.2%/3.6% to 28.7%/3.9%. The importance of the cultivated landscape is more pronounced 76
for threatened birds, with the ratio reaching 37.6%/3.1% and 30.5%/3.6% respectively. 77
Among the 220 birds that use farmland for feeding or nesting, more than half have over 50% 78
simulated potential habitats in cultivated landscapes (see Supplementary Methods, 79
Supplementary Fig. 1). The potential habitats of the 220 species identify six avian-diverse 80
farming regions of China:1) the Northwest Xinjiang, 2) the Bohai Rim and Parts of the North 81
China Plain, 3) the Sichuan Basin, 4) the Poyang Lake Plain and the Plain of Hunan and 82
Hubei, 5) the Coastal Areas and Plains of the Yellow Sea, and 6) the West Guangdong and 83
East Guangxi Areas (Fig. 1b). Nevertheless, to date there has been a lack of both regulatory 84
and institutional arrangements to support the enormous avian conservation value in these 85
identified species-rich farmland regions. 86
5
87
CBD post-2020 framework as an opportunity for mainstreaming 88
China’s obligation to conserve biodiversity is bound to its CBD ratification. However, among 89
the eight megadiverse countries that have over 40% agricultural territory, China is the only 90
nation that lacks explicit farmland biodiversity targets in its NBSAP
5
. The only other 91
exception is the United States, which is not a CBD signatory. Heading towards the post-2020 92
biodiversity framework, a broad consensus has been reached for setting conservation targets 93
high in order to reverse the steep species-decline trajectory
13,14
. The current global protected 94
area system is unlikely to meet such a requirement
15
. In this context, the post-2020 95
framework may serve as an opportunity for China to review its biodiversity strategies on 96
farmland. On the one hand, China inherits a myriad of sustainable agricultural systems that 97
facilitate the co-existence of humans and nature
16
. The value of this long and rich bio-cultural 98
heritage is a great asset for the future. On the other hand, during the same time period set for 99
achieving the Aichi Targets, China has become the world’s largest consumer of chemical 100
fertilizer and pesticide
17
. The rapid agricultural intensification with heavy use of pesticides 101
has profoundly undermined ecosystem services sustained by traditional farming
18
, putting 102
both biodiversity and food safety at risk. Establishing China’s farmland biodiversity strategy 103
requires the recognition of the environmental function of agricultural land at the decision-104
making level. Farmland has to be valued not only for agricultural production, but also as a 105
shared space within which a great number of species complete their life cycles, especially in 106
areas where farmlands are small and scattered. In this sense, farmland biodiversity is one 107
form of public good produced by agriculture as an environmental externality, which should 108
be integrated into China’s ecological compensation schemes. 109
110