Human activities are responsible for the decrease in biodiversity that scientists have observed for several decades. Until now, nature has mostly been harmed by changes in land use. But tomorrow the effects of global warming could take over.
Ipbes, the Intergovernmental Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services, looks a bit like IPCC Biodiversity. And according to its experts, land-use change is a major factor in the decline in biodiversity observed during the 20th century.e century. But to what extent? An international team of researchers is now providing the numbers. Land use change alone would be responsible for a 2 to 11% reduction in global biodiversity.
Scientists say this is the most comprehensive assessment to date of the impact of habitat reduction and fragmentation on the evolution of biodiversity. It is based on thirteen models covering all regions of the world. This certainly distinguishes it from previous studies that worked on fragmented and therefore potentially biased data.
The researchers also calculated the simultaneous impact of land-use change on so-called ecosystem services. Understand the benefits that nature brings to people. Over the last century, they have seen a huge increase in the provision of ecosystem services, such as food production and forests. On the other hand, ecosystem regulatory services, such as pollination, retentionnitrogen or sequestration carbonmoderately reduced.
Human activities at the center of biodiversity decline
The models developed by the team also allow for some projections. And this shows in particular that if land use has long been the main driver of biodiversity loss, it could be overtaken by another human-caused factor by the middle of our century: global warming.
The researchers explain in the journal Science yes, whatever scenario is foreseen – from the one that counts on the establishment of true sustainable development to the one in which emissions of greenhouse gases remain high – the combined effects of land use change and climate change will lead to loss of biodiversity. And in all regions of the world. Although pronounced variations appear depending on regions, models and scenarios.
Preservation of biodiversity as a solution to the climate crisis
The team, however, points out that these projections do not correspond to the forecasts in any way. Their goal, on the contrary, is to enable us to establish policies that would help us avoid the least desirable paths. “Our analysis shows that a truly integrated approach takes into account different dimensions sustainability in a coherent framework is necessary to reduce conflicts between policies and protect biodiversity for decades to come. For example, although the use of bioenergy remains an essential element of most climate stabilization scenarios, it also poses a threat to habitats speciesthe researchers note. Given the potentially synergistic negative effects of land use and climate change on biodiversity, our results suggest that conservation and restoration efforts should be a global priority as necessary natural climate solutions. »
In conclusion, the scientists emphasize that the current policies will not be enough to achieve the goals set at the international level thing preservation of biodiversity. They recommend redoubling efforts and continuing to evaluate the impact of policies to identify the most effective.
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