Tag: biodiversity

The global deforestation footprint of agriculture and forestry

by ahmaddermawan, posted in Publications

Chris West, Gabriela Rabeschini, Chandrakant Singh, Thomas Kastner, Mairon Bastos Lima, Ahmad Dermawan, Simon Croft, U. Martin Persson

Nature reviews earth & environment

Global forest loss impacts climate, biodiversity and sustainable development goals. Deforestation footprinting attributes forest loss to commodity production and consumption, identifying global trends, drivers and hot spots to inform zero-deforestation policies. In this Review, we provide an overview of global deforestation footprinting approaches and their trends. Major economies, including Brazil, Indonesia, China, the United States and Europe, are responsible for most commodity-linked deforestation, with agriculture-linked deforestation in Brazil alone reaching over 12.8 million hectares between 2005 and 2015. Agriculture is a dominant driver of deforestation. For example, 86% of global deforestation occurring between 2001 and 2022 can be attributed to crop and cattle production. Footprinting of commodity-linked deforestation has contributed to the scope and implementation of supply chain regulation to mitigate forest loss. For example, footprint estimates have been used in risk assessments for EU and UK due diligence regulations. Although forest loss to agriculture is relatively well documented, a lack of data on non-agricultural drivers — such as mining and mangrove clearance for aquaculture — limits the scope of footprints in fully attributing total global forest loss to human activities. Future research should focus on methodological and data harmonization, transparency and sharing to enable footprinting approaches to cover a wider range of deforestation drivers.

Choosing fit-for-purpose biodiversity impact indicators for agriculture in the Brazilian Cerrado ecoregion

by ahmaddermawan, posted in Publications

    Gabriela Rabeschini, U. Martin Persson, Chris West, Thomas Kastner

    Nature Communications

    Understanding and acting on biodiversity loss requires robust tools linking biodiversity impacts to land use change, the biggest threat to terrestrial biodiversity. Here we estimate agriculture’s impact on the Brazilian Cerrado’s biodiversity using three approaches—countryside Species-Area Relationship, Species Threat Abatement and Restoration and Species Habitat Index. By using same input data, we show how indicator scope and design affects impact assessments and resulting decision-support. All indicators show agriculture expansion’s increasing pressure on biodiversity. Results suggest that metrics are complementary, providing distinctly different insight into biodiversity change drivers and impacts. Meaningful applications of biodiversity indicators therefore require compatibility between focal questions and indicator choice regarding temporal, spatial, and ecological perspectives on impact and drivers. Backward-looking analyses focused on historical land use change and accountability are best served by the countryside-Species Area Relationship and the Species Habitat Index. Forward-looking analyses of impact risk hotspots and global extinctions mitigation are best served by the Species Threat Abatement and Restoration.