Developing biodiversity indicator to design efficient agri-environmental schemes for extensively used grassland

Agri-environmental measures are among the most important instruments for the promotion of environmentally adapted agricultural land use. While their pertinence in Europe has been increasing for some years, evaluations of these measures have shown that their design is still lacking in both effectiveness and efficiency. This paper describes the derivation of indicator plant species that make it possible to implement result-oriented remuneration schemes in the grassland sector. In many ways, result-oriented agri-environmental schemes can be expected to prove superior to the measure-oriented schemes which are currently most widely used. It is demonstrated how a checklist of indicator species can be derived by using expert knowledge and statistical crosschecks with a database of pre-existing vegetation samples. These species are indicators for conservationally relevant, agriculturally usable grassland on moderately dry to moderately wet sites. The qualities that make a site eligible for remuneration are defined by societal demand as expressed through political objectives and guidelines. One of the challenges in deriving an indicator checklist was to represent quality through species that not only satisfy scientific criteria like validity, but are also operational within remuneration programmes. For example, operational indicator species have to be easily identifiable. The checklist of indicator species for result-oriented remuneration in the Land Brandenburg presented here covers the entire spectrum of site conditions and all types of usable grassland in Brandenburg.