Steppe change

Large areas of the steppe are incapable of sustaining intensive agriculture and will be returned to nature

Wildlife is regaining a toehold on the European steppe under a new economic revenue plan.

(Article taken from our customer magazine, Momentum)

Between 1954 and 1960 the Soviet Union’s Virgin Lands Programme converted 41 million hectares of steppe grassland and forest to arable farmland. Only 3-5% of the steppe area was left in its natural condition.

The Eurasian steppes were an expansive grassland ecosystem extending from Hungary to Mongolia. Where fragments of pristine grassland survive, in Ukraine for example, 800 plant species have been counted. But across the steppe, overploughing and grazing have resulted in severe erosion and degradation of the land, says Euroconsult Mott MacDonald project manager Wim Verheugt. Agricultural productivity has plummeted, destroying the regional economy. People are leaving the land. Soil loss is resulting in the release of carbon that was previously locked up in humus, and plant and animal species are in precipitous decline.

“No other terrestrial habitat in Europe holds such a high proportion of species with an unfavourable conservation status,” Verheugt says.

Euroconsult Mott MacDonald is at the start of a two and a half year programme to try and reverse the decline. With European Union funding, a team of 40 agricultural and environmental specialists will be training local people in Moldova, Ukraine and the Russian Federation in state-of-the-art farming, land management and conservation techniques.

“We are encouraging changes in farming practice, whereby the most fertile areas will be used more intensively, while areas of low productivity will be returned to native grassland or forest,” Verheugt says. A planting programme will be initiated.

“The project involves linking those intensively farmed areas with European supermarkets. Farming across the steppe is low tech – no herbicides or pesticides are used. We therefore want to show people how to gain organic certification so that they can help meet growing consumer demand and sell their produce at the maximum price. Cultivation of hunting, tourism and horse breeding businesses will give people an incentive to let nature recolonise low value land,” Verheugt hopes.

“In two years we aim through three demonstration projects to reach out to thousands of people. We want to provide economic incentives to change land use practices.”

Key sustainability facts

• Reinvigorating the regional economy
• Increasing agricultural productivity
• Restoring biodiversity