Agroforestry and the EU biodiversity strategy

The European Union developed a biodiversity strategy based on six main targets (EC 2011a) and some of them can be fulfilled by agroforestry: (1) development of a network of natural habitats, (2) ecosystem services restoration based on the development of a green infrastructure and (3) ensuring sustainability of agriculture and forestry activities but also (6) stepping up the EU's contribution to concerted global action to avert biodiversity loss. The first target of the EU biodiversity aims at protecting species and habitats by the EU nature law and should be carried out by showing better conservation or a secure status for 100 % more habitats and 50 % more species by year 2020. Due to the important rule that woody perennials and therefore, agroforestry have to play in the biodiversity promotion around Europe, this monitoring should specifically look at the presence of agroforestry practices in the Europe landscape. A comparison between the map of the HNV farmland presence in Europe (EEA 2012) and the map of the area located to silvopastoralism reveals that most of them are located in the Mediterranean area of Europe, highlighting that most of the HNV farmland are managed following the agroforestry principles. Target 2 of the EU Biodiversity Strategy (EC 2011b) aims at maintaining and restore ecosystems and their ecosystem services by including green infrastructure in spatial planning and restoring at least 15 % of degraded ecosystems by 2020