Engaging Citizens to Boost Biodiversity and Climate in Gardens (BIODIVERCITI)

This calls for innovative approaches for awareness building and behavioural change, inter alia among citizens and farmers. Several Austrian initiatives and associations already offer support and materials to citizens and farmers who wish to improve biodiversity on their properties. However, the specific impacts of these initiatives on the participating citizens and farmers remain unclear. It remains an open question how these initiatives could leverage engagement with biodiversity to simultaneously advance engagement with climate action. BIODIVERCITI aims to close this gap.

Research questions & methodology

BIODIVERCITI pursues four research questions in order to analyse the impacts of its intervention on citizens and farmers and their respective gardens and farmland:

1. Which improvements in biodiversity indicators can be achieved? BIODIVERCITI analyses the effectiveness of adapted gardening and cultivation practices on enhancing biodiversity.
2. How do individual climate action and efficacy beliefs change? By experimenting on their own property, citizens and farmers may build a sense of control despite feeling helpless and overwhelmed when facing global crises. 
3. How may citizens and farmers collaborate for combating biodiversity loss and climate change? Citizens and farmers may advocate biodiversity and climate issues within their personal and virtual networks.
4. How may gardens and farmland provide conjunctive elements in habitats? Some species need larger habitats or connecting structures that span across neighbouring properties. Collaboration or conflict between adjacent properties may boost or undermine biodiversity and climate efforts.

BIODIVERCITI involves and observes citizens and farmers and their respective gardens and cropland over the timeframe of two vegetation periods.

IIASA contribution & context

The BIODIVERCITI project is nested in the Equity and Justice (EQU) Research Group of the Population and Just Societies (POPJUS) Program at IIASA.

In work package 5: Farmer impacts, we set out to

1. define biodiversity indicators;

2. measure and explaining impacts on actions and efficacy beliefs of farmers;

3. collect data on farms and validating farmer-collected data;

4. analyse the effects of implemented measures on cropland;

5. identify mechanisms for transfer/spillover between biodiversity and climate action.

In work package 6: Interactions between citizens and farmers, IIASA intends to:

1. identify conflicts and synergies in citizen-citizen, farmer-farmer and citizen-farmer collaboration and

2. analyse the biophysical interactions between biodiversity-friendly gardens and surrounding cropland.

Public engagement & communication

BIODIVERCITI is at its heart a multi-stakeholder citizen science project. Citizens and farmers play an active and central role throughout the project:

• Citizens receive personal advice on how to enhance biodiversity in their garden (such as wildflower beds, ponds, stone or deadwood piles, insect hotels, bushes or hedgerows, restricting pesticides, peat soil and fertilizers). Farmers are grouped by the degree of their participation in the Austrian agri‐environmental programme ÖPUL funding scheme or supplementary organic farming certifications.
• As subjects of research, they are evaluated how their attitudes and beliefs change from reflecting on the observations they make, and how they relate their own actions to biodiversity and carbon emissions.
• As citizen scientists, citizens receive observations protocols and training by experts for observing biodiversity indicators in their garden, and for tracking the climate impact of their own consumption patterns. Farmers specify cultivation techniques and specific measures to enhance biodiversity on their farmland.

Intended impact & outcomes

From the answers to these research questions, BIODIVERCITI develops recommendations to sustainability NGOs, gardening associations, chambers of agriculture, etc. how to better align their activities for biodiversity preservation and climate action: Which measures are most accepted by which target groups and result in which impacts? Which pitfalls and adverse side effects should be avoided? How to resolve conflicts between neighbouring properties and farmland? BIODIVERCITI shall function as a demonstrator project for subsequent efforts in forming citizen-farmer networks all over Austria for tackling biodiversity loss and climate change.

This project has received funding from the Austrian Climate Research Programme (ACRP) of the Austrian Research Promotion Agency (FFG) under Grant Agreement FFG-Nr: 915169.