The Emerging Soybean Production Frontier in Southern Africa: Conservation Challenges and the Role of South-South Telecouplings

Gasparri, Ignácio; Kuemmerle, Tobias; Meyfroidt, Patrick; Waroux, Yann le Polain de; Kreft, Holger

doi:10.1111/conl.12173

Cited by 119 publications

(115 citation statements)

References 36 publications

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“…Maize is the largest crop by area and consumption in Zambia [6], while soya beans are expanding rapidly as a commodity crop to meet regional and global demands for animal feed and direct human consumption [24]. Because the model is designed to meet production targets for multiple crops, we apply algorithms for allocating each crop to its highest value cells, given the particular combination of objectives being assessed.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Reconciling agriculture, carbon and biodiversity in a savannah transformation frontier

Estes

Searchinger

Spiegel

et al. 2016

Phil. Trans. R. Soc. B

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Rapidly rising populations and likely increases in incomes in sub-Saharan Africa make tens of millions of hectares of cropland expansion nearly inevitable, even with large increases in crop yields. Much of that expansion is likely to occur in higher rainfall savannas, with substantial costs to biodiversity and carbon storage. Zambia presents an acute example of this challenge, with an expected tripling of population by 2050, good potential to expand maize and soya bean production, and large areas of relatively undisturbed miombo woodland and associated habitat types of high biodiversity value. Here, we present a new model designed to explore the potential for targeting agricultural expansion in ways that achieve quantitatively optimal trade-offs between competing economic and environmental objectives: total converted land area (the reciprocal of potential yield); carbon loss, biodiversity loss and transportation costs. To allow different interests to find potential compromises, users can apply varying weights to examine the effects of their subjective preferences on the spatial allocation of new cropland and its costs. We find that small compromises from the objective to convert the highest yielding areas permit large savings in transportation costs, and the carbon and biodiversity impacts resulting from savannah conversion. For example, transferring just 30% of weight from a yield-maximizing objective equally between carbon and biodiversity protection objectives would increase total cropland area by just 2.7%, but result in avoided costs of 27–47% for carbon, biodiversity and transportation. Compromise solutions tend to focus agricultural expansion along existing transportation corridors and in already disturbed areas. Used appropriately, this type of model could help countries find agricultural expansion alternatives and related infrastructure and land use policies that help achieve production targets while helping to conserve Africa's rapidly transforming savannahs. This article is part of the themed issue ‘Tropical grassy biomes: linking ecology, human use and conservation’.

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Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…[1,24]). Other possibilities include factors designed to address the significance of contiguity or the impact of different types of development on diversity (e.g.…”

Section: (Iv) Biodiversitymentioning

confidence: 99%

Reconciling agriculture, carbon and biodiversity in a savannah transformation frontier

Estes

Searchinger

Spiegel

et al. 2016

Phil. Trans. R. Soc. B

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“…Although the telecoupling framework is relatively new , it has been applied to address many different issues, such as trade (of food, energy, sand, forest products, industrial products, and virtual water; Liu 2014, Wicke 2014, Liu et al 2015a,b, Silva et al 2017, land use and land cover change (Eakin et al 2014, Sun et al 2017, species invasion , species migration (Hulina et al 2017), tourism (Liu et al 2015a), water transfer (Deines et al 2016, urbanization (Fang and Ren 2017), wildlife transfer (Liu et al 2015a), foreign direct investment (McKinney 2014), payment for ecosystem services Yang 2013, Liu et al 2016a), knowledge transfer (Liu et al 2015a), conservation (Carter et al 2014, Gasparri et al 2016, Wang and Liu 2017, economic development , and fisheries (Lynch andLiu 2014, Carlson et al 2017).…”

Section: Feasibilitymentioning

confidence: 99%

Integration across a metacoupled world

Liu¹

2017

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208

170

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ABSTRACT. Human-nature interactions are complex and have important implications for achieving sustainable development goals and addressing other global challenges. Although numerous studies have explored human-nature (or human-environment) interactions and generated useful insights, they are largely disintegrated. Because conceptual frameworks are the foundation of quantitative and qualitative integration, many have been proposed but focus mainly on human-nature interactions within a specific system. To reflect human-nature interactions between distant coupled systems, the framework of telecoupling (socioeconomic and environmental interactions over distances) has been developed. However, no framework has explicitly integrated human-nature interactions between adjacent coupled systems, let alone within a coupled system as well as between adjacent and distant coupled systems simultaneously. To fill such an important gap, in this paper I present an integrated framework of metacoupling: human-nature interactions within a system (intracoupling), between distant systems (telecoupling), and between adjacent systems (pericoupling). A metacoupled system is a set of two or more coupled systems that interact internally as well as nearby and far away, facilitated by agents affected by various causes with various effects. By differentiating and integrating intracoupling, pericoupling, and telecoupling, the metacoupling framework advances a systems perspective on global sustainability and human well-being. The framework can help uncover hidden systemic connections such as spillovers and feedbacks that may not be apparent when focusing on a particular system. To demonstrate the utility of the metacoupling framework, I illustrate its application to human-nature interactions within a global flagship nature reserve as well as between the reserve and the rest of the world. The illustration suggests that the framework has the potential to help holistically understand and integrate human-nature interactions from local to global scales, over time, and among organizational levels. Finally, I offer suggestions for operationalizing the metacoupling framework and discuss the need for new policy, governance, and management for a sustainable future across the metacoupled world.

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“…Depending on the amount of additional production coming from yield vs. area increases, it is projected that 81-147 million more hectares of agricultural land will be needed to meet global demand for food by 2030 compared with 2000 (2). As the world's appetite for land increases, there is a growing recognition that the supply of land for future agricultural expansion is limited, and that the conversion of remaining land reserves, most of which are in tropical regions, comes with important tradeoffs-such as biodiversity loss or climate regulation (3)(4)(5). It is therefore necessary to seek ways to meet the demand for food without clearing natural ecosystems.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Land-use policies and corporate investments in agriculture in the Gran Chaco and Chiquitano

Waroux

Garrett

Heilmayr

et al. 2016

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

Self Cite

114

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Growing demand for agricultural commodities is causing the expansion of agricultural frontiers onto native vegetation worldwide. Agribusiness companies linking these frontiers to distant spaces of consumption through global commodity chains increasingly make zero-deforestation pledges. However, production and land conversion are often carried out by less-visible local and regional actors that are mobile and responsive to new agricultural expansion opportunities and legal constraints on land use. With more stringent deforestation regulations in some countries, we ask whether their movements are determined partly by differences in land-use policies, resulting in "deforestation havens." We analyze the determinants of investment decisions by agricultural companies in the Gran Chaco and Chiquitano, a region that has become the new deforestation "hot spot" in South America. We test whether companies seek out less-regulated forest areas for new agricultural investments. Based on interviews with 82 companies totaling 2.5 Mha of properties, we show that, in addition to proximity to current investments and the availability of cheap forestland, lower deforestation regulations attract investments by companies that tend to clear more forest, mostly cattle ranching operations, and that lower enforcement attracts all companies. Avoiding deforestation leakage requires harmonizing deforestation regulations across regions and commodities and promoting sustainable intensification in cattle ranching.pollution haven | leakage | land-use change | soy | cattle

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The Emerging Soybean Production Frontier in Southern Africa: Conservation Challenges and the Role of South-South Telecouplings

Cited by 119 publications

References 36 publications

Reconciling agriculture, carbon and biodiversity in a savannah transformation frontier

Reconciling agriculture, carbon and biodiversity in a savannah transformation frontier

Integration across a metacoupled world

Land-use policies and corporate investments in agriculture in the Gran Chaco and Chiquitano

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