Earlier today I attended an enthralling lecture on the impacts of land sharing and land sparing by Professor Andrew Balmford, from the University of Cambridge. Land sharing and land sparing are probably the two most discussed proposals for balancing biodiversity conservation and food security moving in to the future.
Land sharing is based on the idea that integrating farming with wild habitats will allow plants and animals to continue to survive in an area while still producing food yield. Land sparing focuses on maximising food yield, but from a more constrained area. As I have mentioned in previous posts, farming is a key industry on the Lizard peninsula and so which method is found to be most effective could have major impacts on livelihoods in the area.