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Guest Editorial, part of a Special Feature on The influence of human demography and agriculture on natural systems in the Neotropics Globalization and Land-Use Transitions in Latin America
H. Ricardo Grau,Mitchell Aide +1 more
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TLDR
The potential switch from production in traditional extensive grazing areas to intensive modern agriculture provides opportunities to significantly increase food production while sparing land for nature conservation in Latin America as mentioned in this paper, which is a combination of emerging threats and opportunities requires changes in the way the conservation of Latin American ecosystems is approached.Abstract:
Current socioeconomic drivers of land-use change associated with globalization are producing two contrasting land-use trends in Latin America. Increasing global food demand (particularly in Southeast Asia) accelerates deforestation in areas suitable for modern agriculture (e.g., soybean), severely threatening ecosystems, such as Amazonian rain forests, dry forests, and subtropical grasslands. Additionally, in the coming decades, demand for biofuels may become an emerging threat. In contrast, high yields in modern agricultural systems and rural-urban migration coupled with remittances promote the abandonment of marginal agricultural lands, thus favoring ecosystem recovery on mountains, deserts, and areas of poor soils, while improving human well-being. The potential switch from production in traditional extensive grazing areas to intensive modern agriculture provides opportunities to significantly increase food production while sparing land for nature conservation. This combination of emerging threats and opportunities requires changes in the way the conservation of Latin American ecosystems is approached. Land-use efficiency should be analyzed beyond the local-based paradigm that drives most conservation programs, and focus on large geographic scales involving long-distance fluxes of products, information, and people in order to maximize both agricultural production and the conservation of environmental services.read more
Citations
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Tipping Toward Sustainability: Emerging Pathways of Transformation
Frances Westley,Per Olsson,Carl Folke,Carl Folke,Thomas F. Homer-Dixon,Thomas F. Homer-Dixon,Harrie Vredenburg,Derk Loorbach,John Thompson,Måns Nilsson,Eric F. Lambin,Eric F. Lambin,Jan Sendzimir,Banny Banerjee,Banny Banerjee,Victor Galaz,Sander van der Leeuw +16 more
TL;DR: The central question is whether social and technical innovations can reverse the trends that are challenging critical thresholds and creating tipping points in the earth system, and if not, what conditions are necessary to escape the current lock-in.
Journal ArticleDOI
Deforestation and Reforestation of Latin America and the Caribbean (2001–2010)
T. Mitchell Aide,Matthew L. Clark,H. Ricardo Grau,David López-Carr,Marc A. Levy,Daniel J. Redo,Martha Bonilla-Moheno,George Riner,María José Andrade-Núñez,Maria Muñiz +9 more
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors presented a wall-to-wall, annual maps of change in woody vegetation and other land-cover classes between 2001 and 2010 for each of the 16,050 municipalities in Latin American and the Caribbean region (LAC).
Journal ArticleDOI
Land cover changes and their biogeophysical effects on climate
Rezaul Mahmood,Roger A. Pielke,Kenneth G. Hubbard,Dev Niyogi,Paul A. Dirmeyer,Clive McAlpine,Andrew M. Carleton,Robert Hale,Samuel Gameda,Adriana Beltrán-Przekurat,Bruce Baker,Richard T. McNider,David R. Legates,Marshall Shepherd,Jinyang Du,Peter D. Blanken,Oliver W. Frauenfeld,U. S. Nair,Souleymane Fall +18 more
TL;DR: In this article, the authors provide an overview and synthesis of some of the most notable types of land cover changes and their impacts on climate, including agriculture, deforestation and afforestation, desertification, and urbanization.
Journal ArticleDOI
Reconnecting to the Biosphere
Carl Folke,Carl Folke,Åsa Jansson,Åsa Jansson,Johan Rockström,Johan Rockström,Per Olsson,Stephen R. Carpenter,F. Stuart Chapin,Anne-Sophie Crépin,Anne-Sophie Crépin,Gretchen C. Daily,Kjell Danell,Jonas Ebbesson,Thomas Elmqvist,Victor Galaz,Fredrik Moberg,Måns Nilsson,Henrik Österblom,Elinor Ostrom,Elinor Ostrom,Åsa Persson,Åsa Persson,Garry D. Peterson,Stephen Polasky,Stephen Polasky,Will Steffen,Will Steffen,Brian Walker,Brian Walker,Brian Walker,Frances Westley +31 more
TL;DR: It is suggested that the Millennium Development Goals need to be reframed in such a planetary stewardship context combined with a call for a new social contract on global sustainability.
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Changing drivers of deforestation and new opportunities for conservation
TL;DR: Changing circumstances suggest two new and differing strategies for biodiversity conservation in the tropics, one focused on conserving uplands and the other on promoting environmental stewardship in lowlands and other areas conducive to industrial agriculture.
References
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Dynamics of Land-Use and Land-Cover Change in Tropical Regions
TL;DR: In this article, the authors highlight the complexity of land-use/cover change and propose a framework for a more general understanding of the issue, with emphasis on tropical regions, and argue that a systematic analysis of local-scale land use change studies, conducted over a range of timescales, helps to uncover general principles that provide an explanation and prediction of new land use changes.
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Determination of Deforestation Rates of the World's Humid Tropical Forests
Frédéric Achard,Hugh Eva,Hans-Jürgen Stibig,Philippe Mayaux,Javier Gallego,Tim Richards,Jean-Paul Malingreau +6 more
TL;DR: The recently completed research program (TREES) employing the global imaging capabilities of Earth-observing satellites provides updated information on the status of the world's humid tropical forest cover, indicating that the global net rate of change in forest cover for the humid tropics is 23% lower than the generally accepted rate.
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Estimating historical changes in global land cover: Croplands from 1700 to 1992
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors presented a simple approach to derive geographically explicit changes in global croplands from 1700 to 1992, by calibrating a remotely sensed land cover classification data set against cropland inventory data.
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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
TL;DR: It is shown that the best type of farming for species persistence depends on the demand for agricultural products and on how the population densities of different species on farmland change with agricultural yield, and that high-yield farming may allow more species to persist.