Working together to add value: Enhancing landscapes for biodiversity and multiple ecosystem services

管理景观以促进生物多样性和多种生态系统服务是研究人员、决策者、从业者和其他利益相关者当前的优先事项。现有一些鼓励在景观一级进行合作管理的倡议，如“集水区敏感农业”和农村管理的“促进基金”，其重点是生物多样性保护以及提高土壤和水的质量和减轻洪水。农民、土地管理者和保护组织组成了多个“集群”，它们隶属于这些倡议，通过这些倡议，几个利益相关者聚集在一起，在景观尺度上合作管理地块，以提供更高的效益。还有一些社区，如“环境与农业联系（LEAF）”和“农业与野生动物咨询小组（FWAG）”，它们在多个利益相关者社区之间分享信息并加强良好做法，如果要实现25年环境计划的愿望，所有这些社区都至关重要。合作管理方法对不同部门都有好处，包括农业（粮食生产、授粉、土壤）、保护非政府组织（野生动物）、公用事业公司（水质）、公众（公共产品）和决策者（有效利用公共资金、环境保护和粮食安全）。然而，根据利益相关者的优先事项，存在不可避免的权衡和可能的多种解决方案。因此，需要一个透明的、以证据为主导的过程来帮助优化土地使用选择，以最好地满足不同社区的需求。科学研究可以提供独立、透明的信息，在现有证据的范围内形成关键。虽然侧重于生物多样性和生态系统服务的特定方面的单一研究项目在探索具体假设方面很重要，但这些项目孤立地很少有用。对决策者、从业者社区和咨询小组特别有用的是来自多个研究项目的相关信息，这些信息可以以相关和易于获取的方式进行整理、合并和交付。大多数研究项目的重点是寻找有关问题的解决办法，但仍然需要整理这些发现并将其转化为可访问的格式，这是知识交流奖学金可以建立能力和增加巨大价值的地方。该奖学金旨在汇集雷丁大学几个由NERC资助的项目的信息，这些项目评估景观水平的干预措施及其对生物多样性和生态系统服务的影响，以帮助景观规模的合作管理决策。该奖学金将创建一个由来自不同社区的利益相关者组成的知识中心，以便(a)从现有项目中获取信息，(b)向研究人员通报证据需求，以及(c)分享现实世界的经验和良好做法。来自政策部门、保育非政府组织、独立土地顾问、土地管理者和所有者以及研究人员的代表将通过这个知识中心分享信息，这也将使知识转移到利益相关者参与的更广泛的网络中。通过一系列讲习班和协商，将开发各种方法和工具，使多行为者多情景决策能够找到与具体情况相关的管理备选办法。这些情景将包括环境（未来气候和土地利用）以及未来政策（英国脱欧后）选项，利益相关者将帮助制定最适合他们需求的方案。将研究项目的产出翻译成可访问的格式，以及决策工具和信息播客将放在作为研究金的一部分而设立的一个网站上，并将在项目任期结束后提供。

Managing landscapes for biodiversity and multiple ecosystem services is a current priority for researchers, policy makers, practitioners and other stakeholders. Several initiatives exist that encourage cooperative management at the landscape level such as "Catchment sensitive farming" and the Countryside Stewardship's "Facilitation funds" that focus on biodiversity conservation as well as enhancing soil and water quality and flood mitigation. There are multiple 'clusters' of farmers, land managers, and conservation organisations, that fall under these initiatives whereby several stakeholders come together to cooperatively manage land parcels at landscape scales to deliver enhanced benefits. There also exist communities such as the "Linking Environment and Farming (LEAF)" and the "Farming and Wildlife Advisory Group (FWAG)" that share information and enhance good practice amongst multiple stakeholder communities, all of which are critically important if the aspirations of the 25 year environment plan are to be met.There are benefits to a cooperative management approach for different sectors including, farming (food production, pollination, soil), conservation NGOs (wildlife), utility companies (water quality), general public (public goods) and policy makers (effective use of public money, environmental protection and food security). There are however, inevitable trade-offs and also possible multiple solutions depending on the priorities of the stakeholders. There is therefore need for transparent, evidence-led processes to help optimise land use choices to best meet the needs of the different communities involved. Scientific research can provide independent transparent information forming a linchpin in the sphere of available evidence. While single research projects focused on particular aspects of biodiversity and ecosystem services are important in exploring specific hypotheses, these are rarely useful in isolation. Particularly useful for policy makers, practitioner communities and advisory groups is pertinent information from multiple research projects that can be collated, consolidated and delivered in a relevant and easily accessible manner. Most research projects focus on finding the solution to pertinent issues but there is still a need to collate and translate these findings into accessible formats which is where a knowledge exchange fellowship can build capacity and add immense value. This fellowship aims to bring together information from several NERC funded projects across the University of Reading that assess landscape level interventions and impacts on biodiversity and ecosystem services to aid cooperative management decisions at the landscape scale.The fellowship will create a knowledge hub comprising of stakeholders from different communities coming together to (a) gain information from existing projects, (b) inform researchers of evidence needs and (c) share real-world experience and good practices. Representatives from the policy sector, conservation NGOs, independent land advisers, land managers and owners as well as researchers will share information via this knowledge hub which will also enable transfer of knowledge to wider networks that the stakeholders are part of. Through a serious of workshops and consultations, methods and tools will be developed to enable multi-actor multiple scenario decision making to find management options that are relevant and pertinent to specific contexts. The scenarios will include both environment (future climate and land -use) as well as future policy (post-Brexit) options that the stakeholder will help formulate to best suit their needs. The outputs from research projects translated into accessible formats, as well as the decision making tools and information podcasts will be hosted on a website set up as part of the Fellowship and will be available beyond the tenure of the project.