Webinar: “How important is extensive grazing for managing Annex 1 Habitats?”

Eurosite Management Planning Expert Group and Agriculture, Biodiversity and Climate Working Group invite you to a webinar:

How important is extensive grazing for managing Annex 1 Habitats?

The webinar is organised via Zoom on 25 March between 13:00-14:30 CET

➡️REGISTER HERE⬅️

Why join the webinar?

About one third of EU priority habitat types have co-evolved with extensive livestock systems over thousands of years and their conservation depends on a continuation of these extensive farming methods. However little information is available on the spatial distribution of extensive farming methods and their link to these semi-natural habitats.

The European Environment Agency has commissioned the European Forum on Nature Conservation and Pastoralism to get more clarity on the relation between extensive farming and biodiversity. The research was carried out in close cooperation with the JRC, IIASA and the EEA Topic Centre on Urban, Land and Soils.

The research resulted in an estimated number of extensive livestock needed for nature management at EU level and in member states.

In this webinar information about the background and the results of the research will be presented.

Relevant questions are:

• Once we know how many grazing animals are needed how to ensure these are available?
• Can extensive grazing required for the protection of the researched habitat types be combined with rewilding?

Speakers:

Gwyn Jones

Gwyn works for the European Forum on Nature Conservation and Pastoralism, which has been raising awareness of the link between biodiversity and High Nature Value farming systems since the early 1990s.  He spent a decade as a farm advisor in NW Scotland and has worked with partners on projects with from Sweden to Spain and Ireland to Bulgaria.  He is also a part-time suckler cow farmer, direct-selling beef on a small scale.

He is recognised as a top European expert on extensive grazing systems and their link to ecosystem management. He has worked as consultant to EEA and the European Commission in various projects, incl. work on defining High Nature Value Farmland, the impact of the Common Agricultural Policy on the environment and related themes.

Dr. Jan-Erik Petersen

Jan-Erik works since 2001 at the European Environment Agency (EEA) in Copenhagen, starting as project manager responsible for the area of agriculture and environment. From 2001 to 2008 he had lead responsibility for the development of EU agri-environmental indicators, related sectoral assessments and agriculture policy analysis, work on EU bioenergy production as well as cooperation with EU institutions. From January 2009 to December 2015 Jan-Erik was head of group for ‘Major Integrated Assessments’ and ‘Assessment Methods’. Since January 2016 he has focused on Natural Capital Accounting, his tasks including representing EEA in the EU project on ‘Accounting for natural capital and ecosystem services’ (‘KIP INCA’) .

Another important responsibility of Jan-Erik is overseeing the development of the ‘Common International Classification of Ecosystem Services’ (CICES) and contributing to the UN statistical standard on ecosystem accounting

A particular focus of Jan-Erik’s work over the last five years has been EEA’s contribution to EU processes on the development of biodiversity and ecosystem monitoring. This covers all kinds of data, satellite data, statistical sources, citizen science as well as other innovative methods. He also continues to manage EEA’s work on High Nature Value Farmland and extensive grazing systems.