Paying farmers to create woodland and wetland is the most cost-effective way to hit UK environment targets

Study of farmer preferences shows that turning whole areas of farmland into habitats comes with half the price tag of integrating nature into productive farmland, if biodiversity and carbon targets are to be met. Incentivising farmers to restore some land as habitats for nature could deliver UK climate and biodiversity targets at half the taxpayer cost of integrating nature into land managed for food production, according to a new study published today in the British Ecological Society journal People and Nature. 'Semi-natural habitats deliver far more biodiversity and climate mitigation per unit area', says Lydia Collas.

Paying farmers to create woodland and wetland is the most cost-effective way to hit UK environment targets | University of Cambridge