IPBES:
Science and Policy for People and nature, media
release, 26 March 2018:
Worsening Worldwide Land
Degradation Now ‘Critical’, Undermining Well-Being of 3.2 Billion People
Main cause of species loss & driver of the migration of millions of people by 2050 In landmark 3-year assessment report, 100+ experts outline costs, dangers & options
Worsening land degradation caused by
human activities is undermining the well-being of two fifths of humanity,
driving species extinctions and intensifying climate change. It is also a major
contributor to mass human migration and increased conflict, according to the
world’s first comprehensive evidence-based assessment of land degradation and
restoration.
The dangers of land degradation, which
cost the equivalent of about 10% of the world’s annual gross product in 2010
through the loss of biodiversity and ecosystem services, are detailed for
policymakers, together with a catalogue of corrective options, in the
three-year assessment report by more than 100 leading experts from 45
countries, launched today.
Produced by the Intergovernmental
Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES), the
report was approved at the 6th session of the IPBES Plenary in Medellín,
Colombia. IPBES has 129 State Members.
Providing the best-available evidence
for policymakers to make better-informed decisions, the report draws on more
than 3,000 scientific, Government, indigenous and local knowledge sources.
Extensively peer-reviewed, it was improved by more than 7,300 comments,
received from over 200 external reviewers.
Serious Danger to Human
Well-being
Rapid expansion and unsustainable
management of croplands and grazing lands is the most extensive global direct
driver of land degradation, causing significant loss of biodiversity and
ecosystem services – food security, water purification, the provision of energy
and other contributions of nature essential to people. This has reached
‘critical’ levels in many parts of the world, the report says.
“With negative impacts on the
well-being of at least 3.2 billion people, the degradation of the Earth’s land
surface through human activities is pushing the planet towards a sixth mass
species extinction,” said Prof. Robert Scholes (South Africa), co-chair of the
assessment with Dr. Luca Montanarella (Italy). “Avoiding, reducing and
reversing this problem, and restoring degraded land, is an urgent priority to
protect the biodiversity and ecosystem services vital to all life on Earth and
to ensure human well-being.”
“Wetlands have been particularly hard
hit,” said Dr. Montanarella. “We have seen losses of 87% in wetland areas since
the start of the modern era – with 54% lost since 1900.”
According to the authors, land
degradation manifests in many ways: land abandonment, declining populations of
wild species, loss of soil and soil health, rangelands and fresh water, as well
as deforestation.
Underlying drivers of land
degradation, says the report, are the high-consumption lifestyles in the most
developed economies, combined with rising consumption in developing and
emerging economies. High and rising per capita consumption, amplified by
continued population growth in many parts of the world, can drive unsustainable
levels of agricultural expansion, natural resource and mineral extraction, and
urbanization – typically leading to greater levels of land degradation.
By 2014, more than 1.5 billion
hectares of natural ecosystems had been converted to croplands. Less than 25%
of the Earth’s land surface has escaped substantial impacts of human activity –
and by 2050, the IPBES experts estimate this will have fallen to less than 10%.
Crop and grazing lands now cover more
than one third of the Earth´s land surface, with recent clearance of native
habitats, including forests, grasslands and wetlands, being concentrated in
some of the most species-rich ecosystems on the planet.
The report says increasing demand for
food and biofuels will likely lead to continued increase in nutrient and
chemical inputs and a shift towards industrialized livestock production
systems, with pesticide and fertilizer use expected to double by 2050.
Avoidance of further agricultural
expansion into native habitats can be achieved through yield increases on the
existing farmlands, shifts towards less land degrading diets, such as those
with more plant-based foods and less animal protein from unsustainable sources,
and reductions in food loss and waste.
Strong Links to Climate
Change
“Through this report, the global
community of experts has delivered a frank and urgent warning, with clear
options to address dire environmental damage,” said Sir Robert Watson, Chair of
IPBES.
“Land degradation, biodiversity loss
and climate change are three different faces of the same central challenge: the
increasingly dangerous impact of our choices on the health of our natural
environment. We cannot afford to tackle any one of these three threats in
isolation – they each deserve the highest policy priority and must be addressed
together.”
The IPBES report finds that land
degradation is a major contributor to climate change, with deforestation alone
contributing about 10% of all human-induced greenhouse gas emissions. Another
major driver of the changing climate has been the release of carbon previously
stored in the soil, with land degradation between 2000 and 2009 responsible for
annual global emissions of up to 4.4 billion tonnes of CO2.
Given the importance of soil’s carbon
absorption and storage functions, the avoidance, reduction and reversal of land
degradation could provide more than a third of the most cost-effective
greenhouse gas mitigation activities needed by 2030 to keep global warming
under the 2°C threshold targeted in the Paris Agreement on climate change,
increase food and water security, and contribute to the avoidance of conflict
and migration.
Projections to 2050
“In just over three decades from now,
an estimated 4 billion people will live in drylands,” said Prof. Scholes. “By
then it is likely that land degradation, together with the closely related
problems of climate change, will have forced 50-700 million people to migrate.
Decreasing land productivity also makes societies more vulnerable to social
instability – particularly in dryland areas, where years with extremely low
rainfall have been associated with an increase of up to 45% in violent
conflict.”
Dr. Montanarella added: “By 2050, the
combination of land degradation and climate change is predicted to reduce
global crop yields by an average of 10%, and by up to 50% in some regions. In
the future, most degradation will occur in Central and South America,
sub-Saharan Africa and Asia – the areas with the most land still remaining that
is suitable for agriculture.”
The report also underlines the
challenges that land degradation poses, and the importance of restoration, for
key international development objectives, including the United Nations
Sustainable Development Goals and the Aichi Biodiversity Targets. “The greatest
value of the assessment is the evidence that it provides to decision makers in
Government, business, academia and even at the level of local communities,”
said Dr. Anne Larigauderie, Executive Secretary of IPBES. “With better
information, backed by the consensus of the world’s leading experts, we can all
make better choices for more effective action.”
Options for Land
Restoration
The report notes that successful
examples of land restoration are found in every ecosystem, and that many
well-tested practices and techniques, both traditional and modern, can avoid or
reverse degradation.
In croplands, for instance, some of
these include reducing soil loss and improving soil health, the use of salt
tolerant crops, conservation agriculture and integrated crop, livestock and
forestry systems.
In rangelands with traditional
grazing, maintenance of appropriate fire regimes, and the reinstatement or
development of local livestock management practices and institutions have
proven effective.
Successful responses in wetlands have
included control over pollution sources, managing the wetlands as part of the
landscape, and reflooding wetlands damaged by draining.
In urban areas, urban spatial
planning, replanting with native species, the development of ‘green
infrastructure’ such as parks and riverways, remediation of contaminated and
sealed soils (e.g. under asphalt), wastewater treatment and river channel restoration
are identified as key options for action.
Opportunities to accelerate action
identified in the report include:
Improving monitoring, verification
systems and baseline data;
Coordinating policy between different
ministries to simultaneously encourage more sustainable production and
consumption practices of land-based commodities;
Eliminating ‘perverse incentives’ that
promote land degradation and promoting positive incentives that reward
sustainable land management; and
Integrating the agricultural,
forestry, energy, water, infrastructure and service agendas.
Making the point that existing
multilateral environmental agreements provide a good platform for action to
avoid, reduce and reverse land degradation and promote restoration, the authors
observe, however, that greater commitment and more effective cooperation is
needed at the national and local levels to achieve the goals of zero net land
degradation, no loss of biodiversity and improved human well-being.
Knowledge Gaps
Among the areas identified by the
report as opportunities for further research are:
The consequences of land degradation
on freshwater and coastal ecosystems, physical and mental health and spiritual
well-being, and infectious disease prevalence and transmission;
The potential for land degradation to
exacerbate climate change, and land restoration to help both mitigation and
adaptation;
The linkages between land degradation
and restoration and social, economic and political processes in far-off places;
and
Interactions among land degradation,
poverty, climate change, and the risk of conflict and of involuntary migration.
Environmental and
Economic Sense
The report found that higher
employment and other benefits of land restoration often exceed by far the costs
involved. On average, the benefits of restoration are 10 times higher
than the costs (estimated across nine different biomes), and, for regions like
Asia and Africa, the cost of inaction in the face of land degradation is at
least three times higher than the cost of action.
“Fully deploying the toolbox of proven
ways to stop and reverse land degradation is not only vital to ensure food
security, reduce climate change and protect biodiversity,” said Dr.
Montanarella, “It’s also economically prudent and increasingly urgent.”
Echoing this message, Sir Robert
Watson, said: “Of the many valuable messages in the report, this ranks among
the most important: implementing the right actions to combat land degradation
can transform the lives of millions of people across the planet, but this will
become more difficult and more costly the longer we take to act.”
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See:
Unedited
advance Summary for Policymakers of the regional assessment of biodiversity and
ecosystem services for Asia and the Pacific
Unedited
advance Summary for Policymakers of the thematic assessment of land degradation
and restoration
