The Environmental Food Crisis

A central component in preventing loss of biodiversity and ecosystem services, such as provisioning of water, from expanding agricultural production is to limit the trade-off between economic growth and biodiversity by stimulating agricultural productivity and more efficient land use. Fur- ther enhancement of agricultural productivity (‘closing the yield gap’) is the key factor in reducing the need for land and, consequently, the rate of biodiversity loss (CBD, 2008). This option should be implemented carefully in order to not cause additional undesired effects, such as emissions of excess nutrients and pesticides and land degradation. An increase in protected areas and change towards more eco-agricultural cropping systems and sustainable meat production could have immediate positive effects on both biodiversity and water resource management, while increas- ing revenues from tourism (CBD, 2008). Loss of global biodiversity with unsustain- able conventional expansion of cropland

Figure 26: Projected land use changes, 1700–2050. (Source: IMAGE).

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