CLM20-2 full issue-1 - Flipbook - Page 30
A guide to conservation land management and greenhouse gas emissions
Conclusions
When thinking about altering
conservation management to
benefit the climate, it is clearly
important to quantify the
expected benefits in terms of
changes in net GWP, to avoid
making decisions that ‘feel
good’ but which offer only
tiny climate benefits while also
damaging the conservation
value of a site. In most cases,
we believe that consideration of
climate benefits should take a
back seat to conservation aims
in the UK, given the scale of
preventable emissions across
other sectors of the economy,
the small proportion of UK land
Emissions from machinery and vehicles used by practitioners typically
form only a very small proportion of the GHG flux of habitats managed
that is currently well managed
for conservation. FLPA/Alamy Stock Photo
for nature and the limited
additional
climate
benefits that this relatively
Reducing use of fossil fuels
small
area
of
land
could
provide.
GHG emissions from the use of machinery and
However,
as
we
have
highlighted,
there is also
vehicles by conservation practitioners typically
a
range
of
types
of
land-use
change
and
habitat
form only a very small proportion of the GHG
restoration
that
afford
significant
benefits
for
flux of habitats managed for conservation. For
both
wildlife
and
the
climate,
while
in
many
instance, on the RSPB’s nature reserve network,
cases also providing other important ecosystem
the use of vehicles and machinery is estimated
service benefits. We therefore suggest that
to emit an average of just 0.007 t CO2e per ha
conservation should focus more on these types
of land per year across the entire estate. This
of activities to help address both the biodiversity
compares to an estimated mean net removal
and climate crises.
of GHGs from the atmosphere by the habitats
themselves of 2.3 t CO2e per ha per year. It is
worth pointing out that both of these figures
refer to land that includes large areas of habitats
such as intertidal mudflat which sequester
carbon but receive little or no land management,
but we cannot easily assign direct emissions
from vehicle and machinery use to any specific
habitat.
Nevertheless, when replacing machinery,
for example chainsaws and brushcutters, it
would be sensible to replace them with electric/
biofuel options where possible. It would also be
beneficial, where practical, to use solar or wind
pumps instead of diesel pumps, although other
considerations – such as pumping capacity and
the potential for solar panels to be stolen – will
often be paramount.
Acknowledgements
Thanks to Sarah Alsbury, Neil Forbes, Neil Cowie
and Clive Walton for providing information for
this guidance and comments on a previous draft.
References
ABPmer. 2015. The cost of undertaking managed
realignment schemes in the UK. www.omreg.net/
resources
Adams, C. A., Andrews, J. E., & Jickells, T. 2012. Nitrous
oxide and methane fluxes vs. carbon, nitrogen and
phosphorous burial in new intertidal and saltmarsh
sediments. Science of the Total Environment 434:
240–251.
Andresen, H., Bakker, J. P., Brongers, M., Heydemann, B.,
& Irmler, U. 1990. Long-term changes of salt marsh
communities by cattle grazing. Vegetatio 89: 137–148.
Armstrong, A., Holden, J., Kay, P., McDonald, A.,
28 Conservation Land Management Summer 2022 | Vol. 20 No. 2
