{"id":22369,"date":"2024-01-08T09:00:02","date_gmt":"2024-01-08T14:00:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.vrg.org\/blog\/?p=22369"},"modified":"2023-12-22T10:11:18","modified_gmt":"2023-12-22T15:11:18","slug":"land-use-and-biodiversity","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.vrg.org\/blog\/2024\/01\/08\/land-use-and-biodiversity\/","title":{"rendered":"Land Use and Biodiversity"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.vrg.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/12\/photo-from-U.S.-Environmental-Protection-Agency.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-22370\" src=\"https:\/\/www.vrg.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/12\/photo-from-U.S.-Environmental-Protection-Agency.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"251\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>By Jeanne Yacoubou, MS<\/p>\n<p>In our recent article on the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.vrg.org\/blog\/2023\/08\/12\/carbon-footprint-of-vegan-vs-meat-pizza\/\">climate footprints of vegan pizza v. meat pizza<\/a>, we began by noting two astounding facts about animal agriculture:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/iopscience.iop.org\/article\/10.1088\/1748-9326\/8\/3\/034015\">77%<\/a> of all soybeans grown in the world is for livestock consumption.<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/iopscience.iop.org\/article\/10.1088\/1748-9326\/8\/3\/034015\">74%<\/a> of the global corn crop is animal feed.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Underlying these statistics is another one of even greater importance concerning land use that we didn&#8217;t touch on in our carbon footprints article:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Livestock takes up <a href=\"https:\/\/ourworldindata.org\/land-use\">77%<\/a> of all land suitable for agriculture on the planet. This includes grazing land <em>plus <\/em>land used to grow the crops they eat.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>You may think that if livestock took up more than three quarters of the world\u2019s agricultural land, it would at least produce the most food calories and protein available for human consumption. Unfortunately, this is far from the truth.<\/p>\n<p>For all that land use, raising livestock contributes merely 18% of the world\u2019s calories and only 37% of total protein according to <a href=\"https:\/\/ourworldindata.org\/land-use-diets\">an analysis<\/a> by Our World in Data based on the work by <a href=\"https:\/\/www.science.org\/doi\/10.1126\/science.aaq0216\">Poore &amp; Nemecek<\/a>. This is a very inefficient way to feed over <em>8 billion<\/em> people.<\/p>\n<p>By contrast, if everyone in the world were vegan, we could reduce the amount of agricultural land needed to feed people a nutritious diet by <strong>75% <\/strong>concludes that analysis. Since it takes <em>almost 100 times<\/em> as much land to produce a gram of protein from beef versus tofu, you can see how the land savings would quickly add up when everyone converts to veganism.<\/p>\n<p>However, predicting greater meat consumption with an exploding population of nearly 10 billion by 2050, the World Resources Institute calculates feeding them will require <a href=\"https:\/\/www.wri.org\/insights\/10-breakthrough-technologies-can-help-feed-world-without-destroying-it\">600 million more hectares<\/a> of land for grazing and feed crops.<\/p>\n<p>On an already crowded planet, where is this land supposed to come from? Deforestation.<\/p>\n<p>According to the <a href=\"https:\/\/research.wri.org\/gfr\/latest-analysis-deforestation-trends\">World Resources Institute<\/a>, rates of primary forest loss are still increasing despite the <a href=\"https:\/\/webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk\/ukgwa\/20230418175226\/https:\/ukcop26.org\/glasgow-leaders-declaration-on-forests-and-land-use\/\">declaration<\/a> of 145 countries in 2021 to halt and reverse deforestation by the end of this decade. In 2022, 4.1 million hectares were lost. That&#8217;s the equivalent of 11 soccer fields per <em>minute <\/em>and 2.7 gigatons of carbon emissions.<\/p>\n<p>Along with this habitat loss, continued deforestation plunges the world&#8217;s biodiversity further into crisis. Experts refer to the current loss as the sixth mass extinction. Currently, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.unep-wcmc.org\/en\/news\/earths-biodiversity-depends-on-the-worlds-forests\">one million species<\/a> of animals and plants are at risk of extinction in the next few decades.<\/p>\n<p>Forests contain the most <a href=\"https:\/\/www.unep-wcmc.org\/en\/news\/earths-biodiversity-depends-on-the-worlds-forests\">species diversity<\/a> of any ecosystem:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>60,000 tree species<\/li>\n<li>80% of amphibian species<\/li>\n<li>75% of bird species<\/li>\n<li>68% of mammal species<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/news.mongabay.com\/2019\/05\/unprecedented-loss-of-biodiversity-threatens-humanity-report-finds\/\">Ecologists<\/a> warn that the rapid loss of biodiversity is a death knell for human civilization, even more so than the climate crisis. Although the problems humanity are facing threaten human existence, system change can reverse course.<\/p>\n<p>Ending animal agriculture by switching to veganism will remove the need for more deforestation to supply cropland and grazing areas necessary for livestock. Instead, the restoration of natural ecosystems (rewilding) on unused agricultural land can occur \u2013 barring more urban development. And with more intact nature, biodiversity will surely rebound.<\/p>\n<p>Everyone wins in that situation.<\/p>\n<p>To support The Vegetarian Resource Group research, donate at <a href=\"http:\/\/www.vrg.org\/donate\">www.vrg.org\/donate<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Or join at <a href=\"http:\/\/www.vrg.org\/member\/cabdacae.php\">www.vrg.org\/member\/cabdacae.php<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By Jeanne Yacoubou, MS In our recent article on the climate footprints of vegan pizza v. meat pizza, we began by noting two astounding facts about animal agriculture: 77% of all soybeans grown in the world is for livestock consumption. 74% of the global corn crop is animal feed. Underlying these statistics is another one [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-22369","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vrg.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22369","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vrg.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vrg.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vrg.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vrg.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22369"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.vrg.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22369\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":22371,"href":"https:\/\/www.vrg.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22369\/revisions\/22371"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vrg.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22369"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vrg.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22369"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vrg.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22369"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}