Evaluating the English Higher Level Stewardship scheme for farmland birds

摘要

Agri-environment schemes (AESs) are the key mechanism for delivering the UK Government's Public Service Agreement (PSA) target of reversing the decline in farmland bird populations in England by 2020. The English Environmental Stewardship (ES) scheme,comprises non-competitive Entry-Level (ELS) and competitive, targeted Higher-Level (HLS) tiers. A programme of auditing environmental effectiveness of ES has been established in order to demonstrate efficacy, to identify shortcomings, respond to farmingchanges, and to retain credibility. RSPB are currently engaged in evaluating HLS (2007-2011), examining bird usage of ES options designed to provide nesting and food resources, and the influence of such options on bird populations. Using examples from work undertaken in winter and summer so far, we present an overview of the methods, and comparison of key species' populations on HLS and non-ES (control) land and preliminary analyses of bird usage of summer food and nesting options at the field scale. Upon completion of the survey programme, we will be able to relate farm-scale population changes to HLS management, review option resource provision and bird usage, and where necessary, suggest refinements to HLS.