Biodiversity impacts of recent land-use change driven by increases in agri-food imports

Livia Cabernard (), Stephan Pfister and Stefanie Hellweg
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Livia Cabernard: School of Management and School of Life Sciences, Technical University Munich
Stephan Pfister: ETH Zurich
Stefanie Hellweg: ETH Zurich

Nature Sustainability, 2024, vol. 7, issue 11, 1512-1524

Abstract: Abstract Land-use change such as the conversion of natural habitat to agricultural land has been a major driver of global biodiversity loss, prompting efforts at biodiversity restoration. However, restoration measures in certain areas can shift the detrimental biodiversity impacts elsewhere through the outsourcing of agri-food supply chains to biodiverse regions. This study examines the link between biodiversity impacts from land-use change and shifts in global supply chains from 1995 to 2022 by introducing a marginal allocation into multiregional input–output analysis. Almost 80% of recent global land-use change impacts were associated with increased agri-food exports from Latin America, Africa and Southeast Asia + Pacific (excluding China). Conversely, increased imports to China, the United States, Europe and the Middle East accounted for almost 60% of recent global land-use change impacts from a consumption perspective, despite decreasing domestic impacts through restoration. Decreasing biodiversity impacts in temperate and arid regions have been partially achieved by outsourcing agri-food supply to tropical biodiversity hotspots. This results in a cumulated global extinction rate (1.4% global potential species loss since 1995), exceeding the planetary boundary by about fifty times, thus highlighting the need for policies incentivizing habitat protection in tropical regions and sustainable sourcing in agri-food supply chains.

Date: 2024
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DOI: 10.1038/s41893-024-01433-4

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