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Recent actions to mitigate biodiversity loss in agricultural environments appear insufficient despite the considerable efforts channeled via the European Union's Common Agricultural Policy. One likely reason for this failure is the limited attention paid to the regional and landscape level ecological characteristics in farmland conservation planning. We demonstrate how to obtain conservation prioritization solutions that would address simultaneously three goals, including two landscape level targets: minimizing local habitat quality loss, maximizing habitat connectivity, and incorporating landscape heterogeneity. As these goals may be contradictory, we investigate the potential trade-offs between them. We used the Zonation prioritization tool to examine how our three goals could be implemented in the agricultural landscapes of southwest Finland. We used measures of (i) biodiversity value of grasslands, (ii) connectivity between grasslands, and (iii) landscape heterogeneity which comprised of (land cover type based) compositional heterogeneity and (field margin based) configurational heterogeneity. Integration of landscape heterogeneity measures and habitat connectivity resulted in some tradeoffs with local habitat quality, the most prominent observation being that landscape heterogeneity co-varied with grassland connectivity. Among the two landscape heterogeneity parameters, inclusion of compositional heterogeneity resulted in more clustered prioritization solutions than configurational heterogeneity, which had a spatially more balanced impact. Concordance among landscape scale factors implies high potential for reconstruction of a functioning network of semi-natural grasslands in areas under intensive agricultural use. Broader scale multi-objective planning approaches can thus importantly support targeting biodiversity conservation planning and mediating the implementation of Common Agricultural Policy objectives. ; Peer reviewed

Despite calls for evidence-based policies, the process of using evidence in forest conservation policy implementation has remained unclear. In this paper, we focus on voluntary conservation and investigate complex ways to use evidence in implementation of the Forest Biodiversity Programme METSO in Finland. Data were collected via nine focus group discussions involving a total of 59 forest conservation stakeholders. Through interpretative qualitative analysis, we found that forest owners' and forest advisers' awareness of the voluntary instrument and the smooth interplay of knowledge types are important factors in implementing voluntary conservation. Knowledge use should be locally bound for policy implementation to be effective. Social relationships enable integrating local knowledge. Forest owners, advisers, authorities and other actors interpret scientific and other knowledges (and simultaneously co-produce new knowledge) in practical action. We conclude that educating forest advisers, informing forest owners, and increasing collaboration can enhance evidence flows from research to practice. (C) 2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. ; Peer reviewed

There is high-level political support for the use of green infrastructure (GI) across Europe, to maintain viable populations and to provide ecosystem services (ES). Even though GI is inherently a spatial concept, the modern tools for spatial planning have not been recognized, such as in the recent European Environment Agency (EEA) report. We outline a toolbox of methods useful for GI design that explicitly accounts for biodiversity and ES. Data on species occurrence, habitats, and environmental variables are increasingly available via open-access internet platforms. Such data can be synthesized by statistical species distri- bution modeling, producing maps of biodiversity features. These, together with maps of ES, can form the basis for GI design. We argue that spatial conservation prioritization (SCP) methods are effective tools for GI design, as the overall SCP goal is cost-effective allocation of conservation efforts. Corridors are currently promoted by the EEA as the means for implementing GI design, but they typically target the needs of only a subset of the regional species pool. SCP methods would help to ensure that GI provides a balanced solution for the requirements of many biodiversity features (e.g., species, habitat types) and ES simultaneously in a cost- effective manner. Such tools are necessary to make GI into an operational concept for combating biodiversity loss and promoting ES. ; Peer reviewed

To address the ongoing global biodiversity crisis, governments have set strategic objectives and have adopted indicators to monitor progress toward their achievement. Projecting the likely impacts on biodiversity of different policy decisions allows decision makers to understand if and how these targets can be met. We projected trends in two widely used indicators of population abundance Geometric Mean Abundance, equivalent to the Living Planet Index and extinction risk (the Red List Index) under different climate and land-use change scenarios. Testing these on terrestrial carnivore and ungulate species, we found that both indicators decline steadily, and by 2050, under a Business-as-usual (BAU) scenario, geometric mean population abundance declines by 18–35% while extinction risk increases for 8–23% of the species, depending on assumptions about species responses to climate change. BAU will therefore fail Convention on Biological Diversity target 12 of improving the conservation status of known threatened species. An alternative sustainable development scenario reduces both extinction risk and population losses compared with BAU and could lead to population increases. Our approach to model species responses to global changes brings the focus of scenarios directly to the species level, thus taking into account an additional dimension of biodiversity and paving the way for including stronger ecological foundations into future biodiversity scenario assessments.

To address the ongoing global biodiversity crisis, governments have set strategic objectives and have adopted indicators to monitor progress toward their achievement. Projecting the likely impacts on biodiversity of different policy decisions allows decision makers to understand if and how these targets can be met. We projected trends in two widely used indicators of population abundance GeometricMean Abundance, equivalent to the Living Planet Index and extinction risk (the Red List Index) under different climate and land-use change scenarios. Testing these on terrestrial carnivore and ungulate species, we found that both indicators decline steadily, and by 2050, under a Businessas- usual (BAU) scenario, geometric mean population abundance declines by 18–35% while extinction risk increases for 8–23% of the species, depending on assumptions about species responses to climate change. BAU will therefore fail Convention on Biological Diversity target 12 of improving the conservation status of known threatened species. An alternative sustainable development scenario reduces both extinction risk and population losses compared with BAU and could lead to population increases. Our approach to model species responses to global changes brings the focus of scenarios directly to the species level, thus taking into account an additional dimension of biodiversity and paving the way for including stronger ecological foundations into future biodiversity scenario assessments.

To address the ongoing global biodiversity crisis, governments have set strategic objectives and have adopted indicators to monitor progress toward their achievement. Projecting the likely impacts on biodiversity of different policy decisions allows decision makers to understand if and how these targets can be met. We projected trends in two widely used indicators of population abundance Geometric Mean Abundance, equivalent to the Living Planet Index and extinction risk (the Red List Index) under different climate and land-use change scenarios. Testing these on terrestrial carnivore and ungulate species, we found that both indicators decline steadily, and by 2050, under a Business-as-usual (BAU) scenario, geometric mean population abundance declines by 18-35% while extinction risk increases for 8-23% of the species, depending on assumptions about species responses to climate change. BAU will therefore fail Convention on Biological Diversity target 12 of improving the conservation status of known threatened species. An alternative sustainable development scenario reduces both extinction risk and population losses compared with BAU and could lead to population increases. Our approach to model species responses to global changes brings the focus of scenarios directly to the species level, thus taking into account an additional dimension of biodiversity and paving the way for including stronger ecological foundations into future biodiversity scenario assessments. ; Peer reviewed