Management strategies for a win-win relationship between increasing productivity an environmental protection: proposal bases and first results.

ABSTRACT.Most of Uruguay land is under agricultural use, which remarks the necessity to think about lands with productive systems within a general strategy for biodiversity conservation and ecosystem services preservation. Extensive livestock production is able to reach this objectives but needs to improve productivity for not to compromise economic viability. We present a model for evaluate sustainability in a co-innovation work with 16 pilot farms distributed all around the country. Base line levels of productivity, water quality and biodiversity were established and are periodically monitored. The first results of a study case are presented. The base line of water quality was optimal for streams with a 96 WQI. Regarding to biodiversity a large number of wild species were registered: herbaceous plants (47), trees (25), birds (69) and spiders (19). Ecosystem integrity index was 3.8 for this farm. After diagnosis, a redesign of productive system was accorded with the farmer and one year later productivity has increased 24 % with no environmental changes detected in short term monitoring