The biodiversity value of farming systems and agricultural landscapes

The current effort in Australia to increase the proportion of perennial vegetation in agricultural landscapes to manage dryland salinity presents opportunities to improve the viability of remnant vegetation and its dependent biota. At this intersection of ecology and agriculture, many questions arise concerning interpretations of biodiversity from the perspectives of landowners and conservationists, the conservation priorities in agricultural landscapes, and the role of ecological science in understanding the functional contribution of emerging perennial-plant based farming systems to the viability of the native biota. This paper provides the background for the four papers that follow, presented originally at a workshop at Rutherglen in Victoria in October 2003 to discuss the issue of biodiversity values in agricultural landscapes. It then puts forward an approach to research into the biodiversity value of perennial land use systems based on three principles; understanding regional conservation priorities, appreciating farm scale priorities and constraints from the perspective of the landholder, and identifying response functions to establish the role of revegetation in maintaining the viability of the native biota.