Increasing the Government's Farmland Bird Index through conservation management at the farm scale: a ten year demonstration.

Abstract

Conservation management implemented within agri-environment schemes to reverse the decline in a Farmland Bird Index (FBI) of twenty species has already been adopted on a Leicestershire farm where twelve of these species have been monitored over a ten-year period. Overall abundance of the FBI species present increased rapidly in response to conservation management, but there was considerable variation between species. The Government's Biodiversity Action Plans (BAP) set conservation targets for species of greatest conservation concern, including species not included in the FBI. This paper suggests that these provide an important additional indicator of successful systemic application of whole farm management.