“It all depends on what you value”: value hierarchies as barriers to native biodiversity on dairy farms

Abstract

Globally, agriculture is a dominant land use, with approximately 40% of the Earth's ice-free land managed by farmers and herders (Landis, 2017). Pastoral farming accounts for approximately half of Aotearoa's (New Zealand) land area, which also contains over 25% of the country's remaining native vegetation – the highest proportion outside of public conservation land (Norton and Pannell, 2018). When natural habitats are cleared for agriculture, most native biodiversity is lost (Letourneau and Bothwell, 2008; MacLeod et al., 2022). Habitat loss and fragmentation are compounded by the impacts of chemical inputs, invasive species and climate change on what little native biodiversity remains in agricultural landscapes (Emmerson et al., 2016). There are increasing calls to incorporate native biodiversity into farming systems (Dominati et al., 2019; Garibaldi et al., 2021; Kremen et al., 2012) in order to: a) Increase the land area dedicated to native biodiversity so as to halt its decline, b) Provide ecosystem services necessary for the sustainable functioning of agricultural systems, and c) Grow a conservation ethic among landowners by fostering affective bonds between people and nature through daily encounters with native species.