Land sharing versus land sparing—What outcomes are compared between which land uses?

Abstract

Land sharing versus land sparing describes contrasting strategies to conserve biodiversity while maintaining agricultural production. We comprehensively reviewed empirical studies comparing land-sharing and land-sparing strategies to assess how these were conceptualized and how consequences for biodiversity, commodity production, and additional ecosystem services have been quantified. Out of 52 studies, a majority conceptualized land sharing as environmental-friendly agriculture or low-yielding agriculture, and land sparing as high-yielding agriculture combined with preserved natural habitats. However, the latter also represented land sharing in several studies, resulting in an overlap in how land sharing and land sparing were conceptualized. Studies focuses on a limited number of taxonomic groups, primarily birds, whereas ecosystem services (mainly carbon storage) and economic outcomes were rarely considered. To facilitate comparisons and on-the-ground implementation, we suggest to recognize the multitude of land-use combinations along a continuum from extreme land sharing to extreme land sparing. This includes being explicit about both the spatial scales of preserved habitats and the features in land sharing or intermediate strategies that are assumed to benefit biodiversity and hamper commodity production. We also suggest that taxonomic groups, ecosystem services, and welfare consequences should be analyzed based on conservation needs and impacts on social-ecological systems.

The costs of delivering environmental outcomes with land sharing and land sparing

“…By contrast, we assumed land‐sparing interventions to be separate to the farmed area with production entirely forgone, except for any low‐level grazing needed to prevent succession of the habitat, where such grazing is managed primarily to maximise the biodiversity value of the landscape. For broader discussion of the distinction between sparing and sharing interventions, see Sidemo‐Holm et al (2021).…”

Time to incentivize cost-effective conservation in agricultural landscapes

“…While management history and neighboring land use have been integrated to some extent, many other influential contexts, e.g., landscape complexity and climate (Kleijn et al, 2011;Oliver et al, 2016), are still missing in mainstream payment schemes. The rich literature on conservation effectiveness provides information that can be used to integrate such contexts into payment schemes (Bataŕy et al, 2015;Sidemo-Holm et al, 2021b). Furthermore, for many contexts, including those discussed above, the spatially explicit information needed to implement schemes in practice is available through open access databases.…”

Land sharing complements land sparing in the conservation of disturbance-dependent species

“…Land sparing means that biodiversity conservation efforts and production are spatially separated, such that conservation efforts are concentrated to land set aside for this purpose, while the other land is used for production. In contrast, land sharing means that production and biodiversity conservation are spatially integrated, such that forestry and agricultural management are adapted to also promote biodiversity (Green et al 2005 ; Edwards et al 2014 ; Sidemo-Holm et al 2021 ). An unexplored question is whether land sparing or sharing benefits disturbance-dependent species the most.…”

“…In Sweden, forest fires and grazing and mowing of grasslands are the two most important disturbances considered in nature conservation. While evaluations of land sparing and sharing strategies typically assess biodiversity benefits given a target to maintain high production (Sidemo-Holm et al 2021 ), or maybe more relevant in this context, against a target of equal costs for society to implement the alternative strategies, we did not consider these aspects.…”