The Schorfheide-Chorin Project

In the years 1994 to 1999 the German Federal Ministry of Education, Science, Research and Technology (BMBF) and the German Foundation for the Environment (Deutsche Bundesstiftung Umwelt, Osnabrück = DBU) financed  an extensive, multidisciplinary research and developmental project, entitled: “Implementation of nature conservation objectives in an agricultural landscape, exemplified by the Biosphere Reserve Schorfheide-Chorin” (in the following abbr. “Schorfheide-Chorin Project”). The intention of this project was to develop theoretical and practical methodologies and models how to integrate nature conservation targets into the ordinary management of farming. This includes the conventional conservation and restoration of natural or semi-natural habitat patches within agricultural landscapes. But the project additionally focussed on the definition and implementation of conservation targets on the arable fields itself and the functional interactions of the structural elements of a typical eastern German cultural landscape. The project was conducted by the administration of the Schorfheide-Chorin Biosphere Reserve, which  co-operated with 22 research institutes and 41 co-operating farms, and with the regional administration for agriculture. The reference region had a total size of 16.000 ha out of which a study site of about 2.000 ha was analysed in detail.

The project consisted of two building blocks of roughly the same size: (a) a research block and (b) a practical block. Thus, the project deliberately brought together scientists, practioners of nature conservation and agriculture, and administrators within a multidisciplinary approach. Both blocks were conducted in parallel, forcing the interaction between science and practise. It was aimed, that the practical part – out of its own necessities – will ask the “right” questions to the scientists and vice versa, in an interactive process, the scientists influence the way of practical and technological thinking. The project worked in parallel on different space levels. It was one of the main challenges of the project to link these space levels in a sound way, contributing by this to one of the main problems of landscape ecology and planning.

We chaired the scientific block over a couple of years, were responsible for the cooperation between both blocks and – in a separate part project – worked on conservation assessment schemes for agricultural landscapes and the definition of conservation quality targets. For the first task we combined assessment approaches, like the American Habitat Evaluation procedure, the German “Nutzwertanalyse”, and other schemes for specific parts of nature to a comprehensive, logically sound procedure for an overall evaluation of agricultural landscapes. Basic tool are relations which convert scientific data into “nature values”.

Agricultural landscapes are exposed to continuous changes as result of natural features and the actual requirements of humans. While the methods for the conservation of natural areas are rather simple (namely to protect untouched nature and leave it to its own mechanisms) the definition of nature conservation goals in cultural landscapes is much more complicated: (1) human influence is more or less omnipresent, (2) it is up to our decision which variant of future development we chose and the options are often very different from each other. Therefore, nature conservation in agricultural landscape needs “landscape visions” which are specified models on a desired future “optimal” state. If such visions are only roughly described they cannot guide the “actor” in the landscape (e.g. farmer) in his daily work and daily decision-making. It is therefore necessary to specify the “vision” by well defined target, called here “conservation quality targets”. Those targets are quantified by “standards”. Such a method proved to be practicable and successful in many fields of environmental protection (e.g. related to noise, air pollution etc.). However, all such specifications result not automatically from scientific data. They are the result of normative conventions. The Schorfheide-Chorin Project offered a unique chance to bring together scientists, practical persons and administrators from very different fields who together should guarantee for balanced definitions.

Effects of agricultural activities on different levels of space	Quality standards can be defined either in relation to measures or to ecological effects

Generally suitable habitat for the partridge Perdix perdix (left) in a landscape compartment and significance of single agricultural lots for the survival of the local population (right) according to experts´assessment. Especially red and orange lots should be used and managed in a way which respects the requirement of the species