Abstract
Pollination is a key contributing factor to conservation across the globe. In the UK, where much land
is used for agriculture, most conservation efforts are beginning to rely on farmers transforming their
own land away from crop production, towards biodiversity conservation.
However, there are still
ways in which biodiversity and conservation goals can be achieved, and that is by targeting
landowners with hectares of land that are going unused.
This project introduces Botanica, a platform that leverages the stress of implementing conservation
and biodiversity for any willing landowner, not just farmers. The British government already has a bursary, the Countryside Stewardship, which pays any landowner who integrates
specific plants onto their land with a monetary incentive.
The benefits derived from this scheme
include additional profit for landowners who were not previously using their land and a benefit
to the pollinators, whose numbers are dwindling. Botanica is designed to enhance this process by
implementing a recommendation algorithm, so the species recommended will flourish on any user’s
land, thus increasing the success rate of this scheme.