Gamebird conservation through the use of set-aside.

Abstract

The set-aside regulations operating in the UK offer an important mechanism to create habitats and resources for game and wildlife on intensively managed arable land. This has been especially important because of the increasing evidence that wildlife inhabiting farmland, especially arable ecosystems, is in widespread and severe decline throughout much of northern, western and central Europe. Examples include birds (Tucker & Heath, 1994), butterflies (Heath et aI., 1984), beneficial insects (Aebischer, 1991), annual arable wildflowers (Schumacher, 1987) and game species especially the grey partridge (Perdix perdix L.) (Potts, 1986). These declines have coincided with changing land use patterns in agriculture during the last 40 years. Many causes for these declines have been suggested but most agree that they are associated with the increased production of commodity crops (Murphy, 1989). Intensification has taken farming systems towards more intensively managed monocultures and geographically polarized systems of production. Hedges and non-cropped cover types have been destroyed (Chapman & Sheail, 1994) and the diversity of the landscape mosaic made less complex; rotations have become simpler to be replaced, for example, by continuous cereals (O'Connor & Shrubb, 1986). Pesticide use has increased. The number of herbicides available for use in UK cereal fields in 1956 was eight. This had risen to 93 in 1990. Similar but later trends have been observed for insecticides and finally fungicides (Rands et aI., 1988).
But set-aside land has not always been available to be managed in sympathetic ways for wildlife. Until 1993/94, the guidelines for the management of set-aside land in the UK did little to help or encourage farmers to sympathetically manage their surplus land for the benefit of game. This was surprising because on many large estates, the interest in game acts as an important stimulus to manage land sympathetically to encourage high population densities of huntable species. Most set-aside in the original five-year Set-Aside Scheme introduced in 1988 was badly managed and the resulting neglect criticised by both farmers and conservationists (Sotherton, Boatman & Robertson, 1992). The Rotational Set-aside Scheme (RSA) put in place for 1992/93 required control of vegetation before 1 July or cultivation between 1 May and 1 June. This led to widespread damage to wildlife, especially to ground-nesting birds during the nesting season (Poulsen & Sotherton, 1992). Furthermore, it was found that repeated cutting was necessary to control pernicious weeds and prevent them from producing viable seed (Clarke & Cooper, 1992) whilst early cultivations stimulated a further flush of weeds before the end of the set-aside period which needed additional control.
Changes made to the 1993/94 RSA Scheme provide farmers with more management options and greater flexibility for weed control in ways that were less damaging to wildlife. Also, the introduction of the Non-Rotational Set-aside Scheme (NRSA) with its management options that allowed farmers to create, in the longer term, tailor-made wildlife habitats around the farm, provided a potential for positive management. Under these Schemes nesting cover, food and shelter over the winter and areas of insect rich brood-rearing cover could be created.