The market of legal hunting and poaching is highly profitable. Thus, it will be
difficult to limit or reduce hunting of wild animals without much stronger regulations
and efforts in education including lessons in biodiversity conservation.
On the other hand the global range of nature reserves is still continuously
increasing and the realization of the goal to protect 10% of the range of each habitat
type is approaching. Goods and services provided by grassland are more and more
appreciated. There is an awesome agreement at global scales to protect threatened
and rare species from extinction.
What can be done under these circumstances? What should be done? What is
realistic?
As the tendencies and examples illustrated here show humans are willing to
invest much effort and money to facilitate and promote nature conservation projects,
to protect grasslands, to obtain the beauty of landscapes also with respect to their
own place identity. Under these preconditions the question arises how money could
be invested as effectively as possible.
The exploding amount of scientific information and communication,
e.g. possibilities of remote sensing, increased and will increase the attention of
positive and negative processes and events.
In general, farmers are not only interested in profit but also in the health and
welfare of their livestock and in protecting the sustainable use of their surroundings.
These preconditions might be respected by national and supranational authorities
while discussing and organizing policies. Ultimately, the official policy and neither
consumers nor single farmers or hunters by their own will decide about the development and survival of the quantity and quality of grassland habitats.
For the survival of grassland ecosystems and zero species loss of grassland
inhabitants minimum requirements may be the limitation of further conversion to
other habitat types such as arable or urban land, no use of pesticides and no or only
moderate application of water and fertilizers. Moderate mowing and pastoralism
with low densities of livestock must not harm the ecosystem and should be possible
in many regions.
Hunting must be controlled along strong regulations. Scientific irrationalities
such as the trade with horns of ungulates for the production of putative medicine
and aphrodisiacs should be elucidated by education in public schools. Another
possibility may be to overwhelm the market by horns produced in animal farms.
The existing natural, semi-natural and species-rich high-nature value (HNV)
grasslands have to be maintained with respect to national and international regulations. Buffer zones against chemical components such as nutrients and pesticides
have to be established to reach this goal. Only no further loss is acceptable. The wellmaintained grasslands which still exist in Europe, and are managed in a sustainable
way should be preserved as a cultural heritage. The survived traditional rural cultures
and traditional farming based on local ecological knowledge should be supported
and used as a source of knowledge in developing modern biodiversity conservation
programmes.
Under certain conditions it is possible to restore destroyed assemblies, e.g. if
regional species-rich hay as donator for seeds can be used. However, often the results
354
C. Hobohm et al.
difficult to limit or reduce hunting of wild animals without much stronger regulations
and efforts in education including lessons in biodiversity conservation.
On the other hand the global range of nature reserves is still continuously
increasing and the realization of the goal to protect 10% of the range of each habitat
type is approaching. Goods and services provided by grassland are more and more
appreciated. There is an awesome agreement at global scales to protect threatened
and rare species from extinction.
What can be done under these circumstances? What should be done? What is
realistic?
As the tendencies and examples illustrated here show humans are willing to
invest much effort and money to facilitate and promote nature conservation projects,
to protect grasslands, to obtain the beauty of landscapes also with respect to their
own place identity. Under these preconditions the question arises how money could
be invested as effectively as possible.
The exploding amount of scientific information and communication,
e.g. possibilities of remote sensing, increased and will increase the attention of
positive and negative processes and events.
In general, farmers are not only interested in profit but also in the health and
welfare of their livestock and in protecting the sustainable use of their surroundings.
These preconditions might be respected by national and supranational authorities
while discussing and organizing policies. Ultimately, the official policy and neither
consumers nor single farmers or hunters by their own will decide about the development and survival of the quantity and quality of grassland habitats.
For the survival of grassland ecosystems and zero species loss of grassland
inhabitants minimum requirements may be the limitation of further conversion to
other habitat types such as arable or urban land, no use of pesticides and no or only
moderate application of water and fertilizers. Moderate mowing and pastoralism
with low densities of livestock must not harm the ecosystem and should be possible
in many regions.
Hunting must be controlled along strong regulations. Scientific irrationalities
such as the trade with horns of ungulates for the production of putative medicine
and aphrodisiacs should be elucidated by education in public schools. Another
possibility may be to overwhelm the market by horns produced in animal farms.
The existing natural, semi-natural and species-rich high-nature value (HNV)
grasslands have to be maintained with respect to national and international regulations. Buffer zones against chemical components such as nutrients and pesticides
have to be established to reach this goal. Only no further loss is acceptable. The wellmaintained grasslands which still exist in Europe, and are managed in a sustainable
way should be preserved as a cultural heritage. The survived traditional rural cultures
and traditional farming based on local ecological knowledge should be supported
and used as a source of knowledge in developing modern biodiversity conservation
programmes.
Under certain conditions it is possible to restore destroyed assemblies, e.g. if
regional species-rich hay as donator for seeds can be used. However, often the results
354
C. Hobohm et al.