Farm land use and environmental issues: new pressure in farms to implement green belt policy

Abstract

The "Green Belt" public policy aims to rebuilt or maintain ecological continuities in order to preserve biodiversity. The implementation of this policy at the farms' level raises the issue of farmers' ability to preserve and maintain the semi-natural landscape features which can form this green network. The objective of this article is to understand how the land use issues influence the farmer's practices and perceptions concerning semi-natural features which could be parts of existing or new ecological corridors. Our work was based on an enquiry among farmers located in a valley of French Alps. We showed that the land use issue (e.g. spatial patterns or land tenure) is a key driver of farmers' practices concerning management and upkeep of semi-natural features. On a wider scale, the local background of peri-urbanization and its consequences on agricultural land (e.g. pressure on land use or urban development projects at the expense of agricultural land) can influence what farmers think about ecological continuities and biodiversity preservation. Finally the article concludes that public decision makers would do well to take better account of farm land use when implementing the Green Belt policy at the farm's level, within territorial governance which should integrate both land use and environmental issues.