Green infrastructure and EU agricultural policy

We explored the trends and scales of landscape changes in two pilot rural regions of different landscape characters in Hungary (micro-region Csorna, micro-region Gönc). The result of the continuous intensification is the loss of biodiversity and shrinking of the natural, semi natural vegetation, habitats. To halt the loss of biodiversity the European Union has introduced the ‘greening’ measures in the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP). These measures contribute to realising the objectives of green infrastructure (GI) planning. Green infrastructure represents a crucial approach in maintenance and development of ecosystems and ecosystem services. In our study we explored the relationships between the greening of the CAP and GI planning. We formulated the most important GI development objectives in our pilot regions. We elaborated three different scenarios based on the present trends and the realisation of GI development objectives in these regions. The scenarios show that the present incentives for GI development are not enough to halt the loss of biodiversity and enhance life quality of rural regions