Scientists Meet Scientists – TUM-IAS Wednesday Coffee Talk: “Biodiversity impacts of recent land-use change driven by increases in agri-food imports” by Veronika Schlosser
Events, WCT |
On 7 May 2025, Veronika Schlosser(Sustainability Assessment of Food & Agricultural Systems (SAFAS), TUM) will talk about “Biodiversity impacts of recent land-use change driven by increases in agri-food imports.”
Abstract: Land-use change, such as the conversion of natural habitat to agricultural land, has been a major driver of global biodiversity loss, prompting efforts at biodiversity restoration. However, restoration measures in certain areas can shift the detrimental biodiversity impacts elsewhere through the outsourcing of agri-food supply chains to biodiverse regions.
This study examines the link between biodiversity impacts from land-use change and shifts in global supply chains from 1995 to 2022. We combine spatially-resolved land-use change data from 1995 to 2022 with ecoregion-specific global species loss factors from UNEP-SETAC to assess both increases and decreases in biodiversity impacts from land-use change. We integrate this regionalized impact assessment into Resolved EXIOBASE34,5 (REX3), a highly-resolved MRIO database (189 countries x 163 sectors), and introduce a marginal allocation to study the link between shifts in global supply chains and recent biodiversity impacts from land-use change.
Our study reveals that over 90% of global biodiversity impacts from land-use change are tied to international trade of agri-food products. Nearly 80% of recent global land-use change impacts were linked to agri-food exports from Latin America, Africa, and Southeast Asia-Pacific (excluding China). Conversely, increased imports to China, the United States, Europe, and the Middle East accounted for nearly 60% of global land-use change impacts, despite these regions experiencing decreased domestic impacts through restoration. This suggests that declining biodiversity impacts in temperate and arid regions are partly achieved by outsourcing agri-food supply chains to tropical biodiversity hotspots. As a result, global species extinction rates have accelerated, with a 1.4% potential species loss since 1995 exceeding the planetary boundary by about fifty times.
This highlights the urgent need for policies incentivizing habitat protection and sustainable sourcing in agri-food supply chains.
Related Publication: Cabernard, L., Pfister, S. & Hellweg, S. Biodiversity impacts of recent land-use change driven by increases in agri-food imports. Nat Sustain 7, 1512–1524 (2024).
Related TUM Press Release: Biodiversity loss due to agricultural trade three times higher than thought
Date: May 7, 2025
Time: 13:00 CEST (until approx. 14:00)
Location: online
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