The Importance of Building Biodiversity
From our largest animals to tiny micro-organisms, biodiversity encompasses all species on earth and the ecosystems they call home. Biodiversity is constantly in flux, making it hard to measure. It can be altered by things like evolution, genetics and habitat changes and can exist at various scales.
As custodians of the land, we hear a lot about the importance of building biodiversity. However, much information is still emerging on what it truly means, how we can achieve it and why it’s worth the energy.
What Does it Mean to be Biodiverse?
Although many technical descriptions of biodiversity exist, not all know the realities of being on biodiverse land. When we find a wide variety of species of flora and fauna in a landscape through all seasons, our grazing and farming productivity is high. Nature responds to opportunity and takes breaks in patterns, doing what it needs to do at exactly the right time. It’s a good feeling knowing it’s all in harmony and you’ve played a role in building land that thrives.
How do we Increase biodiversity?
The first step in increasing biodiversity is having the intention to do it. Once you decide to manage your land to increase biodiversity, the process often happens naturally. Allow your country to repair by implementing the RCS Grazing Principles, and Soil Health Principles taught in our courses.
Ensure you manage for a high ground cover of litter and living green plants and have your land ready to respond to the next rainfall. Observe the results of your management over time and be prepared to adjust management quickly. It’s essential to accept that nature most often knows best and is giving your land the diversity it can handle at that time, appropriate to the situation. Remain attuned and observant. When you actively listen to the country and notice how it responds to you, biodiversity will follow.
The developing Environmental and Social Governance (ESG) policies of some businesses and banks require reporting of the environmental health of their country on their loan books, with many banks requiring borrowers to report this. RCS is developing the Farm Portrait as part of FarmEye, which will assist land managers and stewards in measuring, recording and verifying their operations’ people, business, production and land components.
Frequently Asked Questions
Biodiversity credits are an arrangement whereby the impacts of development in one place are offset by the purchase of credits in another.
Stay up to date with the Australian Government’s Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water for Biodiversity Stewardship programs and markets that are developing with the potential to generate income from your own biodiversity and sustainable farming.
Healthy biodiversity is a functioning landscape that retains rainfall and nutrients, maximising photosynthesis and creating carbon compounds to feed life above and below ground. As farmers, creating greater biodiversity provides many benefits, including:
- A wider diet selection for grazing animals through all seasons.
- Soil rich in plant nutrients with high absorbency for plant moisture.
- Resilience in the face of natural extremes, with cooler surface temperatures and increased water holding capacity.
- A wide range of fauna and flora across landscapes.
- Improved living, working and playing thanks to the overall improved setting.
The developing Environmental and Social Governance (ESG) policies of some businesses and banks require reporting of the environmental health of their country on their loan books, with many banks requiring borrowers to report this. RCS is developing the Farm Portrait as part of FarmEye that will assist land managers and stewards in measuring, recording and verifying their operations’ people, business, production and land components.
