Farming for Biodiversity

Farming for Biodiversity is a comprehensive guide for identifying, creating and maintaining functionally diverse habitat on farmscapes across Martha’s Vineyard, to support native bee, butterfly and moth species at the greatest risk of local extinction. While the designs, plant lists and management recommendations are based on the conditions found at Island Grown Farm, their applicability stretches far beyond the boundaries of the farm or the Island. The product of a year-long collaboration between farmers and staff at IGI and designers, planners and scientists at Landscape Interactions, this Toolkit endeavors to make pollinator habitat creation easy, exciting and beneficial to the function of the whole farm system — inspiring landowners and land managers to view their properties as integral parts of a network of ecosystems that stretches into surrounding communities and across the wider region.