ABSTRACT
Agricultural landscapes play a central role as habitat for biodiversity. Satellite images have shown that agricultural activities affect 80 to 90 percent of inhabitable terrestrial area worldwide, and that crop production is a dominant ecological influence (i.e., accounting for over 30 percent of land use) in nearly 40 percent of lands (Wood et al, 2000). Of the 100,000 listed public protected areas, 45 percent have over 30 percent of land in annual crops, and an even larger area is used for grazing and forest products (Hassan et al, 2005). Thus, finding ways to conserve natural habitat and biodiversity within agricultural landscapes is a priority concern. In fact, there is now a considerable body of evidence documenting biodiversity-friendly agricultural practices, as well as conservation management strategies in and around farms and ranches (Scherr and McNeely, 2007). In what will be referred to here as ‘ecoagriculture landscapes’, such mosaics of agricultural and conservation areas are managed by stakeholders to jointly achieve sustainable food production, local livelihoods and biodiversity/ecosystem conservation.
