Global land use change, economic globalization, and the looming land scarcity
Eric F. Lambin,Patrick Meyfroidt +1 more
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TLDR
In this paper, the authors argue that the displacement, rebound, cascade, and remittance effects that are amplified by economic globalization accelerate land conversion, and that sound policies and innovations can reconcile forest preservation with food production.Abstract:
A central challenge for sustainability is how to preserve forest ecosystems and the services that they provide us while enhancing food production. This challenge for developing countries confronts the force of economic globalization, which seeks cropland that is shrinking in availability and triggers deforestation. Four mechanisms—the displacement, rebound, cascade, and remittance effects—that are amplified by economic globalization accelerate land conversion. A few developing countries have managed a land use transition over the recent decades that simultaneously increased their forest cover and agricultural production. These countries have relied on various mixes of agricultural intensification, land use zoning, forest protection, increased reliance on imported food and wood products, the creation of off-farm jobs, foreign capital investments, and remittances. Sound policies and innovations can therefore reconcile forest preservation with food production. Globalization can be harnessed to increase land use efficiency rather than leading to uncontrolled land use expansion. To do so, land systems should be understood and modeled as open systems with large flows of goods, people, and capital that connect local land use with global-scale factors.read more
Citations
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Land use change and forest routing in a rural context: The relevance of the community-based management and planning framework
TL;DR: In this paper, an in-depth analysis of spatial and temporal land-use change in a rural mountain area for the data period 1965-2010 is presented, in which both the processes of peri-urbanization and a common land management system involving the state and the community can be observed.
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Land Competition under Telecoupling: Distant Actors’ Environmental versus Economic Claims on Land in North-Eastern Madagascar
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors disentangled distant interactions between actors in terms of flows and institutions, and found that the domains of economic and environmental interactions are dominated by actors from different sectors that have claims on the same land but generally do not interact.
Journal ArticleDOI
More efficient phosphorus use can avoid cropland expansion
José M Mogollón,Alexander F. Bouwman,Alexander F. Bouwman,Alexander F. Bouwman,Arthur H. W. Beusen,Arthur H. W. Beusen,Luis Lassaletta,Hans van Grinsven,Henk Westhoek +8 more
TL;DR: In this article, a dynamic phosphorus pool simulator was applied to different socioeconomic scenarios, and it was shown that cropland expansion can be avoided with less than 7% additional cumulative P fertilizer over 2006-2050 when comparing with croplands expansion scenarios, mostly targeted at nutrient-depleted soils of sub-Saharan Africa.
Journal ArticleDOI
Human transformation of ecosystems: Comparing protected and unprotected areas with natural baselines
David Vačkář,David Vačkář,Zuzana V. Harmáčková,Zuzana V. Harmáčková,Helena Kaňková,Kateřina Stupková,Kateřina Stupková +6 more
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors apply aggregate indicators of anthropogenic pressures on ecosystems and biodiversity in a fine-scale spatial analysis to compare the level of human influence within protected and unprotected areas.
Journal ArticleDOI
Greenhouse gas implications of mobilizing agricultural biomass for energy: a reassessment of global potentials in 2050 under different food-system pathways
Gerald Kalt,Christian Lauk,Andreas Mayer,Michaela C. Theurl,Katrin Kaltenegger,Wilfried Winiwarter,Wilfried Winiwarter,Karl-Heinz Erb,Sarah Matej,Helmut Haberl +9 more
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors present an assessment of agricultural bioenergy potentials compatible with the Food and Agriculture Organization's (2018) 'Alternative pathways to 2050' projections, using the global biomass balance model BioBaM, and derive 'GHG cost supply-curves', i.e. integrated representations of biomass potentials and their systemic GHG costs.
References
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Food Security: The Challenge of Feeding 9 Billion People
H Charles J Godfray,John Beddington,I. R. Crute,Lawrence Haddad,David Lawrence,James F. Muir,Jules Pretty,Sherman Robinson,Sandy M Thomas,Camilla Toulmin +9 more
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Journal ArticleDOI
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Journal ArticleDOI
Proximate causes and underlying driving forces of tropical deforestation.
Helmut Geist,Eric F. Lambin +1 more
TL;DR: Tropical deforestation is driven by identifiable regional patterns of causal factor synergies, of which the most prominent are economic factors, institutions, national policies, and remote influences driving agricultural expansion, wood extraction, and infrastructure extension (at the proximate level).
Journal ArticleDOI
Global food security under climate change
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Journal ArticleDOI
Farming and the Fate of Wild Nature
Rhys E. Green,Rhys E. Green,Stephen J. Cornell,Stephen J. Cornell,Jörn P. W. Scharlemann,Jörn P. W. Scharlemann,Andrew Balmford,Andrew Balmford +7 more
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