What are the impacts of agroforestry on nature recovery in the UK?
Abstract
This paper describes the agroforestry practices in the UK and its impacts in the temperate zone. A priority is given to impacts that have relevance to the UK policy landscape, such as those concerning the Nature Recovery Network (NRN), the Local Nature Recovery Strategy (LNRS), UK Biodiversity indicators, the GB red list and Keystone species or taxa. The impacts of agroforestry are likely to be greatest in intensive arable settings, and more apparent on a catchment or landscape scale than an individual farm basis. Generalist species may benefit more from agroforestry in the short-term, but the biodiversity response is likely to be positively associated to the range and complexity of agroforestry assemblages over time. The potential benefits of agroforestry to rural biodiversity are gaining attention; however, the outcomes of interventions are difficult to predict, owing partially to a lack of long-term controlled experiments and the wide range of confounding factors.