The latest report from the UN Convention on Biological Diversity highlights, yet again, how our destruction of nature is driven primarily by unsustainable farming, overfishing and the burning of fossil fuels, and that our invasion of natural habitats is helping unleash pandemics.
The biggest factor driving biodiversity loss on land is habitat destruction, mainly from farming. The report shows that nations have made almost no progress in meeting internationally agreed biodiversity improvement goals in the last decade. As a result, the report contains even more urgent calls to change our relationship with nature, including transforming how we produce and consume food, and use land. It also recommends we eat less meat and fish.
But, another new study offers hope. It shows that a food shift and land swap could create a massive carbon sink and buy us much needed time. Published in Nature Sustainability US scientists lay out a two-part plan that forms a roadmap to a better future. Their findings show that if we shift what we eat away from meat to plant-based foods, we would need significantly less land for food production. And if the resulting freed up land (from fewer livestock) was naturally reforested, vegetation regrowth could remove as much as nine to 16 years of global fossil fuel CO2 emissions. That much CO2 removal would nearly double Earth's rapidly shrinking carbon budget which we need to stay within to meet the Paris climate goals.
First, the food shift. Plant-based foods such as lentils, beans, and nuts, provide vital protein and nutrients using only a small fraction of the land required to produce meat and dairy. Animal agriculture uses 83% of all agricultural land globally and is a key driver of habitat destruction.
Second, the land swap. If demand for meat fell dramatically in the coming decades, the massive land requirements for livestock would be radically reduced and repurposed from pastures/cropland to forests which could support ecosystems that absorb CO2.
The study also identifies the regions where changing what people grow and eat would have the biggest impact.
"The greatest potential for forest regrowth, and the climate benefits it entails, exists in high- and upper-middle income countries, places where scaling back on land-hungry meat and dairy would have relatively minor impacts on food security," Prof. Matthew Hayek, of New York University and the principal author of the study said in an interview with phys.org.
"We can think of shifting our eating habits toward land-friendly diets as a supplement to shifting energy, rather than a substitute," says Hayek. "Restoring native forests could buy some much-needed time for countries to transition their energy grids to renewable, fossil-free infrastructure."
The scientists concentrated on areas where seeds could disperse naturally, growing and multiplying into dense, biodiverse forests that can remove and store CO2. This analysis “revealed over seven million square kilometres where forests would be wet enough to regrow and thrive naturally, collectively an area the size of Russia.”
This approach — restoring habitats and reducing meat and dairy consumption — can also help reduce the risk of another dire threat, one we are currently enduring.
"We now know that intact, functioning ecosystems and appropriate wildlife habitat ranges help reduce the risk of pandemics," said Helen Harwatt, study co-author and fellow at Harvard Law School. "Our research shows that there is potential for giving large areas of land back to wildlife. Restoring native ecosystems not only helps the climate; when coupled with reduced livestock populations, restoration reduces disease transmission from wildlife to pigs, chickens, and cows, and ultimately to humans."
The scientists also point out that their recommendations rely on nature, existing knowledge and practices to store carbon and do not require a future technological “moon shot” to reduce emissions.
"Restoring native vegetation on large tracts of low yield agricultural land is currently our safest option for removing CO2," Harwatt said. "There's no need to bet our future solely on technologies that are still unproven at larger scales."
Yet more evidence that transforming our food system and what we put on our plates can have a massive impact on reducing the threats of climate change and the spread of zoonotic diseases going forward.