DOI: 10.5061/dryad.p3g44gh
title: Data from: Are agri-environment schemes successful in delivering conservation grazing management on saltmarsh?

description: 1.Grasslands occur around the globe and, in temperate regions, their
 natural management by fire, drought and wild herbivores has largely been
 replaced by grazing with domestic livestock. Successful management for
 agriculture is not always suitable for conservation and can have a
 detrimental effect on biodiversity. Conservation grazing of saltmarshes,
 delivered through agri‐environment schemes, may provide a solution to
 counteract biodiversity loss by providing farmers with financial
 incentives to graze these internationally important coastal wetlands more
 sensitively. 2.To assess whether conservation grazing is being achieved,
 and whether agri‐environment schemes are effective in delivering this
 management, we conducted a national survey on English saltmarshes, scoring
 the management on each site as optimal, suboptimal or detrimental in terms
 of suitability for achieving conservation aims for five aspects of
 grazing: presence, stock type, intensity, timing and habitat impact.
 3.Although most saltmarshes suitable for grazing in England were grazed,
 conservation grazing was not being achieved. Sites under agri‐environment
 management for longer did score higher and approached optimal levels in
 terms of grazing intensity in one region, but sites with agri‐environment
 agreements were no more likely to be grazed at optimal conservation levels
 than sites without them overall, indicating that agri‐environment schemes,
 in their current form, are an ineffective delivery mechanism for
 conservation grazing on saltmarsh. 4.The low specificity of
 agri‐environment prescription wording may contribute to this failure, with
 prescriptions either being vague or specifying suboptimal or detrimental
 management objectives, particularly for grazing intensity, timing and
 stock type. These objectives are often set too high or too low, during
 unsuitable periods, or using stock types inappropriate for achieving
 conservation aims. 5.Synthesis and applications. Our national survey
 indicates that agri‐environment schemes are not currently delivering
 conservation grazing on English saltmarshes. Agri‐environment schemes are
 the only mechanism through which such grazing can be implemented on a
 national scale, so improving their effectiveness is a priority.
 Policymakers, researchers and managers need to work together to ensure
 better translation of conservation guidelines into schemes, increasing the
 specificity of management prescriptions and improving understanding of the
 need for management measures. A more detailed and reliable system of
 auditing to ensure that management activities are taking place would be
 beneficial, or alternatively moving to a results‐based scheme where
 payments are made on desirable outcomes rather than on evidence of
 management.
description: AES delivery
 scoresData in this file were
 used to address this question: Are AES a successful mechanism for
 delivering conservation grazing?AES prescription
 scoresData in this file were
 used to address the following: To what extent is AES agreement wording fit
 for purpose?Conservation grazing
 aspect scoresData in this file were
 used to address the question: Are sites achieving conservation
 grazing?