“Regional land use change is no longer simply driven by local demand; it is also indirectly influenced by international markets and the surging consumption of land-based products,” say the authors, led by Bin Chen, a postdoctoral fellow at Fudan University. “Countries with forest conservation goals can import finished land-based products via global supply chains, displacing land-use pressure and related eco-environmental impacts outside their own territorial borders.” The researchers used multi-source geographic information data and economic modeling to evaluate the direct and indirect causes of intact forest landscape loss. Intact forests support more diverse species, are more resilient to natural disturbances such as wildfires, and in Africa and South America, can store more than three times the amount of carbon per hectare compared to disturbed or managed forests. Previous studies have focused on deforestation—the complete removal of tree cover—but focusing on intact forests instead allowed the authors to shine a spotlight on the insidious roles played by degradation and fragmentation. “Even the removal of narrow tracts of forests can affect overall forest structure and composition,” say the authors. “Considering the exceptional conservation value of intact forest landscapes in terms of stabilizing terrestrial carbon stocks and harboring biodiversity, intact forest landscapes loss displacement can also reflect potential indirect driving forces behind carbon emissions and biodiversity loss.” Reference: “Risk of intact forest landscape loss goes beyond global agricultural supply chains” by Siyi Kan, Bin Chen, U. Martin Persson, Guoqian Chen, Yutao Wang, Jiashuo Li, Jing Meng, Heran Zheng, Lan Yang, Rui Li, Mingxi Du and Thomas Kastner, 20 January 2023, One Earth.DOI: 10.1016/j.oneear.2022.12.006
