| In Switzerland, parallel to agri-environmental measures which apply directly to the field management, farmers had to convert at least 7% of their land to ecological compensation areas – ECA. Major ECA are extensified grassland, traditional orchards, hedges, and wild flower strips. In 2000, the situation shows that farmers practise the agri-environmental scheme all over Switzerland with a total of 120,000 hectares of different types of ECA. The introduction of ECA throughout the country's agricultural area can be seen as a large scale landscape restoration experiment. Its biological effects are evaluated in a monitoring programme. In a case study area of about 6 km2, in 1997, biodiversity indicators (spiders, carabid beetle and butterflies) were recorded... |
