C. de Haan

Bio: C. de Haan is an academic researcher. The author has contributed to research in topics: Environmental impact assessment & Livestock. The author has an hindex of 7, co-authored 13 publications receiving 4742 citations.

Livestock's long shadow: environmental issues and options.

Abstract: Presentation de l'editeur : This report aims to assess the full impact of the livestock sector on environmental problems, along with potential technical and policy approaches to mitigation. The assessment takes into account direct impacts, along with the impacts of feed crop agriculture required for livestock production. The livestock sector emerges as one of the top two or three most significant contributors to the most serious environmental problems, at every scale from local to global. The findings of this report suggest that it should be a major policy focus when dealing with problems of land degradation, climate change and air pollution, water shortage and water pollution, and loss of biodiversity. Livestock's contribution to environmental problems is on a massive scale and its potential contribution to their solution is equally large. The impact is so significant that it needs to be addressed with urgency. Major reductions in impact could be achieved at reasonable cost

Livestock in a changing landscape, Volume 2: experiences and regional perspectives.

Abstract: 2010, Island Press, 1718 Connecticut Avenue NW, Suite 300, Washington, DC 20009, USA 396pp, softcover and hardcover ISBN 978–1-59726–671-0 (softcover), 978–1-59726–670-3 (hardcover). Price US$95 (softcover), US$150 (hardcover) 2010, Island Press, 1718 Connecticut Avenue NW, Suite 300, Washington, DC 20009, USA 189pp, softcover and hardcover ISBN 978–1-59726–673-4 (softcover), 978–1-59726–672-7 (hardcover). Price US$55 (softcover), US$100 (hardcover)

La larga sombra del ganado. Problemas ambientales y opciones

Abstract: El objetivo de este informe es realizar una evaluacion del impacto global del sector pecuario sobre los problemas ambientales, asi como de los posibles enfoques tecnicos y normativos para mitigarlo. Esta evaluacion se basa en los datos mas recientes y completos a disposicion y tiene en cuenta tanto los impactos directos como los derivados de los cultivos forrajeros necesarios para la produccion ganadera. Por la magnitud de su impacto, la ganaderia es uno de los dos o tres sectores con repercusiones mas graves en los principales problemas medioambientales a todos los niveles, desde el ambito local hasta el mundial. Los resultados de este informe indican que la consideracion de este sector es fundamental a la hora de disenar politicas encaminadas a la solucion de los problemas relacionados con la degradacion de las tierras, el cambio climatico, la contaminacion atmosferica, la escasez y contaminacion del agua y la perdida de biodiversidad. La incidencia del ganado en los problemas ambientales, asi como tambien su potencial para contribuir a solucionarlos, son decisivos. Su impacto es tan significativo que precisa urgente atencion. Podrian obtenerse notables reducciones del impacto a un costo razonable. (Resume d'auteur)

Food Security: The Challenge of Feeding 9 Billion People

Abstract: Continuing population and consumption growth will mean that the global demand for food will increase for at least another 40 years. Growing competition for land, water, and energy, in addition to the overexploitation of fisheries, will affect our ability to produce food, as will the urgent requirement to reduce the impact of the food system on the environment. The effects of climate change are a further threat. But the world can produce more food and can ensure that it is used more efficiently and equitably. A multifaceted and linked global strategy is needed to ensure sustainable and equitable food security, different components of which are explored here.

Solutions for a cultivated planet

Abstract: Increasing population and consumption are placing unprecedented demands on agriculture and natural resources. Today, approximately a billion people are chronically malnourished while our agricultural systems are concurrently degrading land, water, biodiversity and climate on a global scale. To meet the world's future food security and sustainability needs, food production must grow substantially while, at the same time, agriculture's environmental footprint must shrink dramatically. Here we analyse solutions to this dilemma, showing that tremendous progress could be made by halting agricultural expansion, closing 'yield gaps' on underperforming lands, increasing cropping efficiency, shifting diets and reducing waste. Together, these strategies could double food production while greatly reducing the environmental impacts of agriculture.

Use of U.S. Croplands for Biofuels Increases Greenhouse Gases Through Emissions from Land-Use Change

Abstract: Most prior studies have found that substituting biofuels for gasoline will reduce greenhouse gases because biofuels sequester carbon through the growth of the feedstock. These analyses have failed to count the carbon emissions that occur as farmers worldwide respond to higher prices and convert forest and grassland to new cropland to replace the grain (or cropland) diverted to biofuels. By using a worldwide agricultural model to estimate emissions from land-use change, we found that corn-based ethanol, instead of producing a 20% savings, nearly doubles greenhouse emissions over 30 years and increases greenhouse gases for 167 years. Biofuels from switchgrass, if grown on U.S. corn lands, increase emissions by 50%. This result raises concerns about large biofuel mandates and highlights the value of using waste products.

Land Clearing and the Biofuel Carbon Debt

Abstract: Increasing energy use, climate change, and carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions from fossil fuels make switching to lowcarbon fuels a high priority. Biofuels are a potential lowcarbon energy source, but whether biofuels offer carbon savings depends on how they are produced. Converting rainforests, peatlands, savannas, or grasslands to produce food-based biofuels in Brazil, Southeast Asia, and the United States creates a ‘biofuel carbon debt’ by releasing 17 to 420 times more CO2 than the annual greenhouse gas (GHG) reductions these biofuels provide by displacing fossil fuels. In contrast, biofuels made from waste biomass or from biomass grown on abandoned agricultural lands planted with perennials incur little or no carbon debt and offer immediate and sustained GHG advantages. Demand for alternatives to petroleum is increasing the production of biofuels from food crops such as corn, sugarcane, soybeans and palms. As a result, land in

Status and ecological effects of the world's largest carnivores.

Abstract: Large carnivores face serious threats and are experiencing massive declines in their populations and geographic ranges around the world. We highlight how these threats have affected the conservation status and ecological functioning of the 31 largest mammalian carnivores on Earth. Consistent with theory, empirical studies increasingly show that large carnivores have substantial effects on the structure and function of diverse ecosystems. Significant cascading trophic interactions, mediated by their prey or sympatric mesopredators, arise when some of these carnivores are extirpated from or repatriated to ecosystems. Unexpected effects of trophic cascades on various taxa and processes include changes to bird, mammal, invertebrate, and herpetofauna abundance or richness; subsidies to scavengers; altered disease dynamics; carbon sequestration; modified stream morphology; and crop damage. Promoting tolerance and coexistence with large carnivores is a crucial societal challenge that will ultimately determine the fate of Earth's largest carnivores and all that depends upon them, including humans.