Identifying Potential Cropland Losses When Conserving 30% and 50% Earth with Different Approaches and Spatial Scales

Land

Yichuan Shi¹  Xiaoping Liu²  Yue Cao³  Rui Yang³  Xiaoxuan Liu⁴  Peng Gong⁴  Jianqiao Zhao⁴  Le Yu⁴ 

[1] Conservation International, Beijing 100027, China;Guangdong Key Laboratory for Urbanization and Geo-simulation, School of Geography and Planning, Sun Yat-sen University, Guangzhou 510275, China;Institute for National Parks, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084, China;Ministry of Education Key Laboratory for Earth System Modeling, Department of Earth System Science, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084, China;

关键词: protected areas;    cropland;    Half-Earth;    biodiversity conservation;    food security;   

DOI  :  10.3390/land10070704

来源: DOAJ

【 摘 要 】

Biodiversity conservation is the cornerstone for sustainable development. Bold conservation targets provide the last opportunities to halt the human-driven mass extinction. Recently, bold conservation targets have been proposed to protect 30% or 50% of Earth. However, little is known about its potential impacts on cropland. We identify potential cropland losses when 30% and 50% of global terrestrial area is given back to nature by 2030/2050, at three spatial scales (global, biome and country) and using two approaches (“nature-only landscapes” and “shared landscapes”). We find that different targets, applied scales and approaches will lead to different cropland losses: (1) At the global scale, it is possible to protect 50% of the Earth while having minimum cropland losses. (2) At biome scale, 0.64% and 8.54% cropland will be lost globally in 2030 and 2050 under the nature-only approach while by contrast, the shared approach substantially reduces the number of countries confronted by cropland losses, demanding only 0% and 2.59% of global cropland losses in 2030 and 2050. (3) At the national scale, the nature-only approach causes losses of 3.58% and 10.73% of global cropland in 2030 and 2050, while the shared approach requires 0.77% and 7.55% cropland in 2030 and 2050. Our results indicate that bold conservation targets could be considered, especially when adopting the shared approach, and we suggest adopting ambitious targets (protecting at least 30% by 2030) at the UN Biodiversity Conference (COP 15) to ensure a sustainable future for Earth.

【 授权许可】

Unknown