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In 1991, the state of California largely banned burning of rice straw after harvest, and farmers turned instead to winter flooding of fields to break down straw. As a result, wildlife has flourished in rice fields which reproduce, to some extent, the wetland habitat that once covered most of California's Central Valley. Rice fields now support some 200 species including fish, birds and reptiles. 

Winter flooding depends on sufficient water supplies and farmers have come under pressure from drought, climate change and economic changes, putting this success story at risk. Last year, the California Rice Commission asked researchers at ²»Á¼Ñо¿Ëù and Point Blue Conservation Sciences to estimate how many acres of rice would be required to support multiple species. 

The researchers issued their report in February and it is described in some detail in this . The report estimates that 470,000 to 500,000 acres of rice cultivation would be needed to support all the key species studied, assuming that there is no loss of wetland habitat in other areas. 

This is the first time multiple species have been studied together in one analysis that includes agricultural, ecological, economic and management effects, write authors John Eadie, Daniel Karp and Andrew Rypel. 

"We did this to move beyond ‘old-school’ single-species management thinking – what we might call ‘postage stamp conservation’: well-meant conservation plans that focus on a few species in a focal area. Single-species thinking leads us to ‘us-versus-them’ discussions … fish vs. fowl, shorebirds vs. ducks, hatcheries as the sole answer for fish, farmers vs. wildlife. We must move beyond this mindset," they wrote in the blog post.

Read more about the report .