National Agrienvironmental Standards Initiative

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National Agri-environmental Standards
Initiative April 11th and 12th,
2006 Biodiversity Standards Status Report
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AGRICULTURAL POLICY FRAMEWORK- CONTEXT FOR NAESI
Business Risk Management
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NAESI

• A contractual commitment as per the MOU with
  AAFC. EC responsible for the 4 year program
  (2004-2008)
• Goal is to support a consistent national approach
  to the achievement of common environmental
  outcomes over the long term
• MOU between AAFC and EC provides framework for
  Standards development

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Standards Definitions

• Performance Standards definition (EC)
• Establish the degree of desired environmental
  quality of air, biodiversity, water, and
  pesticides in agricultural areas
• Quantitative or qualitative measures (descriptive
  benchmarks) or degree of desired environmental
  quality
• Defined in terms of
• ideal maximum concentration of harmful or
  dangerous substances
• specified condition of the environment
• as habitat standards (biodiversity)
• Process Standard definition (AAFC)
• Recommended production methodologies to reduce
  negative environmental impacts
• Can be defined in terms of land management or
  agronomic practices or maintenance of habitat or
  species
• Also known as Beneficial Management Practices

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NAESI Approach

• Development of Environmental Performance
• Standards for four theme areas
• Air, Biodiversity, Pesticides, and Water
• Standards are
• to be practical and consistent science-based
  benchmarks to help guide the design of farm
  practices in achieving desired environmental
  outcomes
• not intended to be regulatory instruments
  standards will be delivered to AAFC for
  implementation

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Priority Standards

• Water (nutrients, pathogens, and instream flow
  needs)
• Biodiversity (habitat conservation- wetlands,
  riparian areas, woodlands, grasslands and
  connective corridors)
• Pesticides (top priority pesticides in air and
  water and commodity-based pesticides)
• Air (particulate matter/ammonia and odour)

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Biodiversity means the variability among living
organisms and the ecological complexes of which
they are a part including diversity within
species, between species and of ecosystems.
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• Goal- Biodiversity Standards
• Deliver to Agri-Food and Agriculture Canada
• a suite of measurable standards for acceptable
  levels of
• biodiversity conservation applicable to
  agricultural regions across
• Canada
• what is it we want to conserve- keep the
  pieces,
• keep the blueprints, keep the ecosystem services
• Ecosystem services include Provisioning
  services (food, fresh water, fuel, fiber,
  biochemicals, genetic resources) Regulating
  Services (climate regulation, disease regulation,
  water regulation and water purification, insect
  regulation) Supporting services (soil
  formation, nutrient cycling, primary production,
  pollination) and Cultural Services (spiritual,
  recreation, aesthetic, inspirational,
  educational, sense of place, cultural heritage)

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• Guiding Principles
• Based on scientifically valid relationship to
  biodiversity health
• Focused on standards for biodiversity endpoints
  affected
• by agriculture
• Consistent with key environmental legislation,
• Canadian Biodiversity Strategy, and AAFC
  Biodiversity Action Plan
• Derived at ecologically appropriate scale but
  translatable to targets
• at the farm scale
• Addresses linkages with other NAESI themes
• Links to the NAHARP (National Agri-environmental
  Health
• Assessment and Reporting program)
• Supportive of future potential farm
  certification program

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Strategic Directions

• Preliminary risk assessment Agriculture
  /Biodiversity Interactions
• National Consistency Sensitive to Regional
  Variation
• Priority Habitat quantity and quality at
  multiple scales
• Species at Risk and Habitat Standards
• Potential formats for habitat standards

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• Year 1- Scoping Exercises
• Agriculture/ Biodiversity Interactions-Defines
  biodiversity elements and agricultural practices
  with highest risk, for standards focus
• Review of environmental standards and
  certification systems relevant to Agriculture
• Assessment of models, tools and approaches for
  setting habitat objectives - tools directly
  applicable to Canadian agricultural regions to
  determine desired habitat quantity, quality and
  pattern at multiple scales.
• Examine existing sources of biodiversity
  direction for agricultural regions-(watershed or
  landscape plans/strategies, species guild plans,
  species at risk recovery plans, relevant
  legislation/policies)
• Review of methods for re-constructing
  pre-settlement condition as reference and
  assessment of projects completed across
  agricultural regions.

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Preliminary risk assessment summary Agriculture
/Biodiversity Interactions
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• Priority - Habitat quantity and quality- Part of
  our Natural Capital
• Project completed in year 1 to review
  biodiversity standards for agriculture as well as
  other industries (such as forestry) to assess the
  scope, type and format of biodiversity standards
  as well as approaches to developing standards.
  
• Literature review of models, tools and
  approaches with potential application for
  development of habitat objectives completed in
  Year 1.
• Several conceptual models used in other
  jurisdictions (Australia, U.S., EC Ontario
  Region, Alberta Sustainable Development, etc.)
  combined to develop an approach for developing
  standards for habitat quality and quantity.

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Priority Standards

• What are the critical characteristics of land
  cover/ land use pattern to conserve biodiversity
  at a level that will ensure the continued supply
  of ecological/ecosystem goods and services
  (broadly defined) and the conservation of
  ecosystem, species and genetic biodiversity
  typical for the region.
• Standards quantitative and qualitative
  descriptors of the land cover amount, pattern and
  quality required to meet biodiversity goals
• Biodiversity (habitat conservation- wetlands,
  riparian areas, woodlands, grasslands and
  connective corridors)

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National Consistency Sensitive to Regional
Variation

• NAESI Generic Biodiversity Goals
• Conserve regional ecosystem services
  (regulating, provisioning supporting) that are
  dependent on biota that inhabit wetlands,
  forests, grasslands, riparian areas
• Conserve ecosystem services in pattern that
  continues to be of direct benefit to agriculture
• Conserve ecosystem diversity representation
  of full array of ecosystems in proportions
  indicative of pre-settlement or PNV landscape
• Conserve unique landscape features
• Conserve habitat quality of natural areas
• Conserve species composition typical for region
• Reverse negative trends in species populations
• Conserve contribution of agricultural areas as
  habitat
• Conserve habitat for species at risk
• Consistent with legislation

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• What will habitat standards look like?
• project completed in year 1 to review
  biodiversity standards for agriculture as well as
  other industries, such as forestry, to assess the
  scope, type and format of biodiversity standards
  as well as approaches to developing standards.
  
• format and level of detail for NAESI habitat
  standards will be dependent on available
  information for examining threshold levels for
  habitat components relevant in each ecoregion.
• review provided possible formats for habitat
  based standards and approaches to setting habitat
  standards.

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Our Approach- Tiered Process to deliver habitat
based standards by 2008
Generalized habitat standards- all ecozones
(How much habitat is enough approach)- amount
and configuration of wetlands, woodlands,
grasslands and corridors.
Ecoregion habitat based standards-
incorporate refined coarse filter and fine filter
elements- incorporate existing
population/habitat targets.
Habitat based standards- decision support process
- dynamic landscape meta-population
models Process development and demonstration
St. Lawrence Lowlands Ecoregion and Mixed
Grassland Ecoregion
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Habitat Based Standards
Tier 1

• Examples of scientific thresholds for native
  woodland
• Occurrence of woodland songbirds increased
  dramatically when area in woodland increased to
  between 10-20 of the landscape (Villard 1999)
• of forest interior bird species in 10km2 area
  continued to increase to 35.5 forest cover
  (Cadman 1999)
• impact of habitat loss is predicted to be
  independent of fragmentation when gt10-30 of the
  original habitat remains (Parker and MacNally
  2002)

100
0
of land base modified for agriculture
land base in native/ semi native cover
0
100
WHC Habitat Status Report
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• Tier 1 - Example - Habitat Guidelines- Canadian
  Wildlife Service, Ontario Region, Mixedwood
  Plains Ecozone
• Thirty percent forest cover (blocks of gt10,000
  ha)
• At least one 200-hectare forest patch that is a
  minimum of 500 metres wide
• Ten percent of the watershed -forest cover 100
  metres or further from the forest edge Five
  percent - forest cover 200 metres or further
  from the forest edge
• Forest patches - circular or square in shape
  and within two kilometres of one another
• Corridors designed to facilitate species
  movement - minimum of 50 to 100 metres wide
  Corridors to accommodate breeding habitat must
  consider target species requirements
• Watershed forest cover - representative of the
  full diversity of forest types found at that
  latitude
• Seventy-five percent of stream length naturally
  vegetated
• Thirty-metre wide stream buffers

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• Tier 2 Refining the How Much Habitat is Enough
  Approach at the Ecoregion Level
• Refine existing standards through
• better definition of habitat patch criteria for
  local ecosystems types forest, wetland,
  riparian areas (i.e. by forest cover type and age
  class e.g. Mature Hardwoods)
• include grassland component (include old field,
  native pasture, tame pasture and potentially tame
  hay/alfalfa)
• landscape (area habitat quantity and
  fragmentation/ connectivity habitat quality) as
  well as patch quality considerations (e.g. patch
  level guidelines)
• St. Lawrence Lowlands, Okanagan, Northern Mixed
  Grassland and Prince Edward Island have been
  selected for development of tier 2 standards
  (ongoing)

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• Tier 3 Habitat Based Standards, Decision
  Support System-
• Select a suite of surrogate measures for
  structure, function and processes at multiple
  scales- Coarse and fine filter approach-
  combination of landscape metrics and specific
  habitat types needed to support healthy
  populations of selected suite of species.
• Develop decision support process to determine
  if current landscape will provide habitat
  quantity and quality required to conserve
  ecologically functional levels of surrogates over
  time (using landscape simulation)
• using dynamic landscape meta-population models,
  published habitat thresholds, and existing
  habitat (or population targets).
• Use decision support process to assess
  scenarios
• Provide Decision-support tools and build
  modeling capacity to integrate information and
  facilitate trade-off analyses

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Indicator Checklist
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Example -Site Level Standards- Woodlands
Mixedwood Plain Ecozone
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• Species at Risk and habitat Standards
• Approach - examine the habitat requirements for
  species for which a contributing threat is
  loss/degradation of habitat within agricultural
  regions.
• habitat requirements will be incorporated within
  determination of habitat quantity, pattern and
  quality for a region.
• database - developed by the SAR section-
  provides species habitat requirements. When
  combined with distribution data for each species
  will provide a suite of habitat types that are a
  priority for conservation and restoration to
  support conservation of species at risk.
• approach will support the promotion of habitat
  stewardship through voluntary standards
  incorporated within EFPs.
• approach is similar to the Milk River Basin
  Multisar partnership initiative (Alberta
  Sustainable Development and Alberta Conservation
  Association).
• NAESI Biodiversity Standards will not identify
  critical habitat for specific species.

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Year 2

• 1. Synthesis of threshold information and
  development of How much habitat level standards
  for each Ecozone that coincides with agricultural
  regions- Tier 1 -Habitat Based Standards.
• Develop, test and refine the conceptual decision
  support process- developing habitat based
  standards at ecoregional level two pilot
  ecoregions.
• - Decision Support Process development/ testing
  in St. Lawrence Lowlands- Northern Mixed
  Grassland Production of Tier 3 standards
• 3. Assessment of data to support biodiversity
  standard development (species population
  inventory and monitoring, landcover/landuse data)

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• Species at risk- identify species with
  agriculture as significant factor- accumulate
  habitat information
• 5. Collection of information on quantification of
  the effect of management practices (BMPs) to
  facilitate modeling of cumulative affect on
  Habitat quality and quantity at landscape level
• 6. Application of the IBI/ IHI to riparian,
  woodlands, grasslands and wetlands to address
  finer scale habitat quality issues and standards

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Summary

• Consolidation/integration of existing
  science/information/tools- build on what came
  before us if it is appropriate
• Consolidation and rationalization of existing
  biodiversity directions for ecoregions
• Tier 3 Habitat based standards decision support
  process- the goal is to define a realistic and
  scientifically sound decision support process
  not necessarily a fully operational integrated
  software based system- this can come later
• Ensure the approach is practical but provides
  progress in terms of integration of science
• This project is about getting our ecological
  science act together- but in a way that it can be
  integrated with social and economic aspects to
  support landuse/land management decisions.