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Abstract The concept of High Nature Value Farmland (HNVF) was introduced in the early 1990s to highlight the crucial role of low intensity farming systems for the conservation of biodiversity in Europe. HNVF is a biodiversity indicator and the maintenance or the enhancement of HNVF is a goal of the EU's rural development policy. Several different approaches currently exist for identifying such areas, and a number of studies have shown that outcomes have often been unsatisfactory, at least as concerns biodiversity conservation. In this study, we use birds as indicators to assess the correlation between HNVF types identified according to the land cover approach and farmland areas important for biodiversity in Apulia, a southern Italian region that is among the most important in the Mediterranean area for farmland biodiversity. Our results suggest that unless the current land cover approach – which is mainly based on criteria relating to vegetation types and landscape structure – is accompanied by an objective analysis of local biodiversity levels, it risks excluding from HNVF some of the most important areas for biodiversity, thus reducing indicator effectiveness because of the lack of a proper assessment of HNVF extent and quality. Thus, our study shows a possible method to better identify HNVF type 3, thus increasing the effectiveness of the HNVF indicator. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]