Abstract
Although eco-compensation policies have been used with great success in many aspects of ecological restoration in China, previous policies have not shown strong increases in habitat for biodiversity. At the same time, agricultural expansion and urbanization has contributed to the rapid decline of wetlands in the country, as well as their associated fauna and flora, and specifically shorebird populations. Using capital from a new national eco-compensation plan for wetlands, we rented aquaculture ponds in five villages in southern China, and lowered the water depth during the winter and spring when the ponds were not used. The species richness of shorebirds in the treated ponds was approximately twice that in the control ponds, and abundances were approximately 10 times higher. The birds were not strongly affected by measures of human presence and disturbance. Our results demonstrated that this simple intervention can be useful to increase the potential habitats of shorebirds, including overwintering migrants. Yet despite the success of the project, a delay in funding dramatically downsized its size. This illustrates how flexible funding streams, combined with biological assessments, are necessary for effectively using the government’s limited funds for eco-compensation.
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Acknowledgements
We appreciate the support of the Guangxi Beilun Estuary Mangrove National Nature Reserve and its officers. We thank two anonymous reviewers for their constructive criticism that improved the manuscript. This project is greatly indebted to the farmers, both those in the program and those who worked on the control ponds, for their cooperation and support.
Funding
This project was supported by Central Government Subsidies for Wetland Conservation and Restoration, China (2018) and Guangxi 1000 Young and Middle-Aged College and University Backbone Teachers Cultivation Program (2019.5).
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WD, AJ and EG developed the idea and wrote the first draft. RH, CM, SL and LZ developed the.
statistics. BS, ST and XL help design and conduct this project. All authors read and.
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Dai, W., Goodale, E., He, R. et al. An Eco-Compensation Policy Increases Shorebird Diversity during the Non-farming Period for Aquaculture. Wetlands 41, 4 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13157-021-01397-7
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s13157-021-01397-7