Northern Great Plain, Hungary
Large arable systems on the Pannonian lowlands, where bigger fields have meant fewer hedgerows, fewer pollinators and tired soils.
Northern Great Plain, Hungary
Large arable systems on the Pannonian lowlands, where bigger fields have meant fewer hedgerows, fewer pollinators and tired soils.
Cereal, maize & sunflower
Habitat loss
Semi-natural restoration
Discovery Center
Cereal, maize and sunflower dominate here, working at scale across the Pannonian lowlands. Fields typically run between 30 and 40 hectares, and the landscape has been reorganised over decades to make that possible.
Hedgerows, field margins and wetlands were cleared to make way for larger fields. What was gained in efficiency was lost in structure: the small, untidy, in-between places where biodiversity actually lives.
Pollinators are declining. Soils are degrading. The landscape works well as a machine and poorly as an ecosystem, and the two are more connected than they appear.
FIREFLIES looks at how semi-natural elements can find their way back into large arable landscapes without asking farmers to work against their own economics. Bringing back hedgerows and margins, introducing legumes into rotations, reconsidering field size.
The question underneath all of it is which CAP instruments, from AÖP to AKG and beyond, could actually make that shift viable. Restoration that does not pay does not last.
A mosaic of plowed fields and weedy fallow, Földes
Eastern imperial eagle, Batura
Jászapáti
Lapwings, Batura
Mown grasslands, Földes
Natural floodplain of the river Zagyva during flooding along a non-regulated stretch
Natural floodplain of the river Zagyva during flooding along a non-regulated stretch
Red-backed shrike, Földes
Regulated stretch of the river Zagyva during flooding
Roadside edge with black locust tree line
Roe deer, Földes
Roller_Apaj
Sodic stagnating water patch
Stagnating water next to the regulated stretch of the river Zagyva
Stagnating water next to the regulated stretch of the river Zagyva
Stagnating water next to the regulated stretch of the river Zagyva
The river Zagyva during flooding
Typic landscape in the Jászság, Mátra Mts. in the background
Typic landscape in the Jászság
Western marsh harrie, Földes
Eszter Takacs, Discovery Center
eszter.takacs@drdc.eu
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