Farmland biodiversity is thought to be steeply declining throughout Europe, and society at large is increasingly concerned about the loss of public goods, such as iconic wildlife and cultural landscapes, yet to date few studies have been able to produce data to support or refute this claim. During this presentation, Stuart will showcase previous work establishing relationships between butterfly recorders and farmers, and how participating in monitoring on farmland influenced perceptions of biodiversity and biodiversity-friendly farming practices whilst providing valuable recorders to the record pool. Stuart will then discuss future plans to increase the scalability and capacity of this model to wider communities and taxa.

Dr Stuart Edwards is a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Reading with an interest in agroecology, citizen science and sustainable farming.