Meeting global land restoration and protection targets: What would the world look like in 2050?

Abstract

Land restoration has received increased attention recently as a tool to counteract negative externalities of unsustainable land management on human well-being. This is reflected in targets of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), the United Nations Framework of the Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD). However, the implications of these targets for land use, especially considering their potential conflict with growing food production demands, are largely unexplored. We study the potential and aggregated consequences of meeting these targets on land cover and land system change. We do so by analyzing targets originating from these global commitments towards land restoration and protection and implement them in a global land system change model. We compare this Restoration and Protection scenario with simulation results of two plausible pathways of socioeconomic development in the absence of these targets, following the Shared SocioEconomic Pathway (SSP) storylines. We find that meeting global land restoration and protection targets would increase global tree cover by 4 million km², increasing forest carbon stocks by 50 Gt and protecting 28% of the terrestrial area with the highest value of both biodiversity and carbon storage. Gains in tree cover and natural land systems would cause a contraction of crop, pasture-and bare land. This results in further cropland intensification and the expansion of land systems that are combining land use demands in mosaics of forest and agriculture. Without these targets, land system architecture tends to become more specialized, while many carbon and biodiversity hotspots, such as in the Americas, India, and Indonesia would be lost. Grassland-agriculture mosaics were threatened by land use change under all scenarios, requiring greater consideration in research and environmental policy. Our results emphasize the need for targeted land management in line with the analyzed policy targets if global restoration and protection targets are to be achieved.

Effects of ecological restoration on soil properties of the aeolian sandy land around Lhasa, southern Tibetan Plateau

“…Land degradation is considered as one of the major global problems closely related to food security threats, reduction of ecosystem services, and biodiversity losses , Wolff et al 2018. Globally, 169 countries are experiencing negative effects of land degradation and/or drought, and the global economy would have lost $23 trillion by 2050 (UNCCD 2018a); for example, the most productive areas in Somalia are experiencing the highest risk of degradation due to deforestation, overgrazing, and poor cultivation practices (UNCCD 2018b).…”

Community assembly as a basis for tropical forest restoration in a global change scenario

“…Native vegetation of the basin, mainly seasonal tropical forest, holds high levels of diversity (Neves et al 2020), challenging the restoration of such large areas. Besides choosing the adequate site-specific restoration strategy (Brancalion et al 2016; Holl & Aide 2011), the selection of locally adapted species is necessary to restitute taxonomic, functional and phylogenetic diversities (Li et al 2018; Temperton et al 2005), safeguarding community stability and the performance of ecosystem services (Kang et al 2018; Pillar et al 2013), especially in global changing scenarios (Bakker & Wilson 2004; Harris et al 2006; Wolff et al 2018). Thus, the understanding of the environmental influences ruling the vegetation assemblages is required to select locally adapted species for planting or seeding (Gastauer et al 2018).…”

Endangered species’ trait responses to environmental variability in agricultural settings

“…In agricultural settings, open grassland ecosystems host a significant number of species and have been recognized among the most threatened ecosystems on the planet [1]. The grasslands at the southern edge of the Pannonian Basin (e.g., the region of Vojvodina Province in Serbia) are particularly affected by agricultural intensification and land use degradation as a consequence of adverse local and regional agricultural policies [2].…”