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Appendix 01: Speakers’ summary notes
Theme 2.
Human-directed drivers for land use, land use change degradation, and desertification, and implications for food security
Human-directed drivers of land use change: implications for food security, economic and resource costs
ALISHER MIRZABAEV AND JOACHIM VON BRAUN
PLENARY SESSION 3:
HUMAN-DIRECTED DRIVERS OF LAND USE AND LAND USE CHANGE, LAND DEGRADATION AND IMPLICATIONS FOR FOOD SECURITY
Introduction
Land use and cover changes (LUCC) will have critical impacts on the trajectories of future climatic changes and the functioning of food systems (Wheeler and von Braun 2013). Forests serve as the biggest terrestrial carbon sink, containing about 46% of global carbon stocks in their vegetation and the soil beneath them (Noble et al 2000). Similarly, grasslands, account for 20% of the soil carbon stocks (Ramankutty et al. 2008). According to remote sensing data, the cropland covers 23% of the global land area (Nkonya et al. 2016), though containing only about 5% of global carbon stocks (Noble et al. 2000). It has been shown that deforestation and other forms of land use change account for almost half of CO2 emission in Sub-Saharan Africa (Canadell et al. 2009). Moreover, increasing demands for food and biomass due to growing populations, incomes and more diversified and competing uses of biomass in emerging bioeconomy sectors are likely to further intensify pressures for global LUCC. Already the annual global cost of lost ecosystem services of land due to LUCC was estimated to equal 234 billion USD (Nkonya et al. 2016). Therefore, an improved understanding of drivers of LUCC is essential for more accurate forecasting of the LUCC impacts on both future climate and the food systems, and of potential policy measures to facilitate the achievement of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) under changing resource constraints due to LUCC.
Drivers of land use change
Drivers of land use and cover changes are numerous, complex and interrelated (Nkonya et al. 2016), with often context- dependent characteristics (Mirzabaev et al. 2016). They can be classified into two categories: proximate and underlying. Proximate drivers comprise of immediate human actions that modify land use and land cover. Underlying drivers are the root factors shaping human behavior causing land use changes, formed by a complex of human-directed social, political, economic, demographic, technological, cultural factors, as well as by biophysical conditions (ibid.). If proximate drivers operate at the local scale, underlying drivers usually operate at larger scales, including global (Lambin et al 2003). Among the underlying drivers, biophysical drivers are the natural factors leading to land cover changes, such as climate variability, topography, soil types and others. Biophysical factors interact with human causes to lead to land-use changes.
Changing resource constraints due to past LUCCs modify resource prices and economic costs thus creating endogenous feedback loops that modify future LUCCs. For example, deforestation in the highlands of Vietnam leading to soil erosion and decreasing the profitability of the then prevalent slash-and-burn crop cultivation occurred at the same
time when lowland rice production was experiencing significant productivity gains through the application of labor- intensive technologies. As a result, new resource constraints and profitability considerations led to the re-allocation
of labor to lowland rice production allowing for the highland deforestation to reverse (Lambin and Meyfroidt 2010). Moreover, significant deforestation and loss of forest ecosystem services also prompted the Vietnamese government
to establish new reforestation programs (ibid.). Similarly, the interaction of rapid urbanization due to socio-economic development, governmental afforestation and reforestation policies, and climate change impacts on the profitability
of crop production were found to be the major drivers of land use changes in China over last two decades (Liu et al 2010). Growth in international coffee prices, certain characteristics of fiscal policies, lack of transparent property rights, inconsistencies in forestry legislation were found to be among the major drivers of deforestation in Sumatra region of Indonesia (Verbist et al. 2005).
FAO-IPCC Expert meeting on climate change, land use and food security