Accelerated cropland expansion into high integrity forests and protected areas globally in the 21st century

Summary, in English

Intact forests and protected areas (PAs) are central to global biodiversity conservation and nature-based climate change mitigation. However, cropland encroachment threatens the ecological integrity and resilience of their functioning. Using satellite observations, we find that a large proportion of croplands in the remaining forests globally have been gained during 2003–2019, especially for high-integrity forests (62%) and non-forest biomes (60%) and tropical forests (47%). Cropland expansion during 2011–2019 in forests globally has even doubled (130% relative increase) than 2003–2011, with high medium-integrity (190%) and high-integrity (165%) categories and non-forest (182%) and tropical forest biomes (136%) showing higher acceleration. Unexpectedly, a quarter of croplands in PAs globally were gained during 2003–2019, again with a recent accelerated expansion (48%). These results suggest insufficient protection of these irreplaceable landscapes and a major challenge to global conservation. More effective local, national, and international coordination among sustainable development goals 15, 13, and 2 is urgently needed.

• Author: Lanhui Wang; Fangli Wei; Jens Christian Svenning
• Department/s: Dept of Physical Geography and Ecosystem Science
• Publishing year: 2023
• Language: English
• Publication/Series: iScience
• Volume: 26
• Issue: 4
• Links: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.isci.2023.106450
• Document type: Journal article
• Publisher: Elsevier
• Topic: Ecology
• Keywords: Economic geology; Global change; Nature conservation
• Status: Published
• ISBN/ISSN/Other: ISSN: 2589-0042