Grasslands and Wetlands Are Being Gobbled Up By Agriculture, Mostly Livestock
by Georgina Gustin
Agriculture is widely known to be the biggest driver of forest destruction globally, especially in sprawling, high-profile ecosystems like the Amazon rainforest.
But new research published this week finds that non-forest ecosystems—the world’s grasslands, savannas and wetlands—are being devoured for agriculture at nearly four times the rate as forests. As with forests, the primary driver is livestock.
“The goal of this research was really just to understand where in the world this is happening,” said Elise Mazur, a researcher with the Land and Carbon Lab at the World Resources Institute and one of the report’s authors. “We know where deforestation is occurring. But we were less sure about where non-forest ecosystems are being lost.”
The study, published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, is a unique attempt to analyze which types of agriculture are forcing the conversion of natural ecosystems on a global scale, and then to attribute that conversion to demand for specific commodities.
