Ecological Focus Areas (EFAs) have recently been introduced as key element in the greening of the EU’s Common Agricultural Policy. In 2015, farmers across the EU have implemented EFAs for the first time. Data for German federal states indicate a strong variance in EFA decisions with an overall dominance of catch crops, nitrogen fixing crops and fallow land – two of which bear limited benefits for biodiversity conservation. This article explores how experts explain EFA choices.

A series of approaches have been proposed for natural resource management and biodiversity conservation in recent decades. In the important forestry sector, two of the most dominant policy paradigms have been multi-purpose forestry and sustainable forest management. The Convention on Biological Diversity, amongst other transnational commitments, added the ecosystem approach and its related idea of ecosystem services to this succession which is increasingly becoming the basis for natural resource management, including in the United Kingdom (UK).

In this paper we assess the types of knowledge networks utilised by small-scale farmers in four case studies (located in Bulgaria, Poland, Portugal, and the United Kingdom). We focus on knowledge acquired to inform three new activities being undertaken by study participants: agricultural production, subsidy access and regulatory compliance, and farm diversification (specifically agritourism).