Rural land abandonment is too ephemeral to provide major benefits for biodiversity and climate

Abstract

Hundreds of millions of hectares of cropland have been abandoned globally since 1950 due to demographic, economic, and environmental changes. This abandonment has been seen as an important opportunity for carbon sequestration and habitat restoration; yet those benefits depend on the persistence of abandonment, which is poorly known. Here, we track abandonment and recultivation at 11 sites across four continents using annual land-cover maps for 1987–2017. We find that abandonment is largely fleeting, lasting on average only 14.22 years (SD = 1.44). At most sites, we project that >50% of abandoned croplands will be recultivated within 30 years, precluding the accumulation of substantial amounts of carbon and biodiversity. Recultivation resulted in 30.84% less abandonment and 35.39% less carbon accumulated by 2017 than expected without recultivation. Unless policymakers take steps to reduce recultivation or provide incentives for regeneration, abandonment will remain a missed opportunity to reduce biodiversity loss and climate change.

Bioenergy crops, biodiversity and ecosystem services in temperate agricultural landscapes—A review of synergies and trade‐offs

“…Yet, we only found a few studies assessing environmental impacts from energy crop cultivation on non‐managed agricultural land, and they present none or very few benefits for ecosystem services and biodiversity. These results are in line with recent findings from Crawford et al (2022) and Valujeva et al (2022), suggesting that reintegrating abandoned land with intensive agricultural production rather will remove land that is essential for ecosystem services (such as carbon sequestration) and biodiversity locally and regionally. More studies on and an enhanced understanding of how we best utilize abandoned farmland and other non‐managed land is needed, to avoid generating conflicts between energy, climate and biodiversity targets.…”

Transformation of ecosystems in Bryansk Oblast caused by the agro-industrial complex development

“…This forces to focus on lands are not used for agricultural purposes for a long time or to return non-contaminated and slightly destructed abandoned fields to agricultural use. Currently, debate on economic benefit of returning of abandoned lands in agricultural turnover are still going on [13][14][15]. However, over the past 10-12 years, in Bryansk Oblast a course to decreasing of agricultural land abandonment has been implemented.…”

Quantifying the recarbonization of post-agricultural landscapes

“…Of course, many PALs are not permanent by definition and were never meant to be, such as lands under fallow or shifting agriculture. But others are simply unprotected: abandoned agricultural lands are at constant risk of recultivation in their first few decades and often before significant ecological benefits are realized 10 .…”