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Loss of livelihoods and lands of indigenous populations and local communities
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provisioning ecosystem services (e.g. food, fibre, medicines or freshwater needed as inputs); and (3) regulating ecosystem services (e.g. soil and air quality, climate regulation or pollination) (OECD, 2019[21]).
At the same time, agricultural production for certain dietary patterns and food waste, can increase
pressure on land-use. Under current trends, diet composition would contribute to approximately 80 per cent increase in global agricultural greenhouse gas emissions from food production and to global land clearing by 2050 (Tilman and Clark, 2014[42]). Food wasted and lost is another major contributor to GHG and land clearing (FAO, IFAD, UNICEF, WFP and WHO, 2019[43]). The amount of food wasted and lost each year represents crops cultivated on 1.4 billion ha of agricultural land, which is about a third of the world total agricultural land (FAO, 2013[44]; OECD, 2020[45]).
Dietary changes, together with reductions in both food waste and over-consumption8 could
significantly contribute to sustainable land use (Mbow et al., 2019[22]; OECD, 2020[45]). Alexander et al (2016[46]) analyse the role of past and present developments in diets on global agricultural land use. They found that the quantity of per-capita food consumption is less important than the types of food commodities consumed in determining the agricultural land requirement because of the important land requirement for animal products and in particular ruminant species. Similarly, the IPCC Assessment of individual foods in terms of animal-based vs plant-based showed that meat - especially ruminant meat (beef and lamb) - is the single food with the greatest impact in terms of GHG emissions and/or land use. Changing diets can entail significant benefits on carbon sequestration from land-sparing: the lower the amount of meat in the diet, the higher the GHG mitigation potential (Mbow et al., 2019[22]). However, trade-offs are involved with food loss and waste reduction or any dietary change. For instance, OECD (2019[47])’s modelling simulations show that food loss reduction or changes in diets do result in significant cuts in GHG emissions, but they would result in revenue declines for producers, including poor ones, and the potential of policies to achieve this is unknown. Reducing food waste could lead to more sustainable land use or reduced demand for land (Alexander, 2016[46]). In order to reduce food waste, overconsumption, and the demand for animal products that are produced unsustainably and to address the trilemma diet-environment-health globally, the Global assessment report on biodiversity and ecosystem suggests options like participatory on-farm research, the promotion of low-impact and healthy diets and the localisation of food systems (Chan, Agard and Liu, 2019[48]). In Brazil, recent studies have looked at measures to transform cattle ranching. Even if meat consumption does not decrease, improving sector productivity, together with adequate measures to avoid social and environmental rebounds of intensification, could reduce deforestation and spare land for restoration (Chan, Agard and Liu, 2019[48]). More data on food loss and waste and on impacts of food loss and waste policies is needed to inform policies that could better balance trade-offs between environmental and economic impacts (OECD, 2019[47]).
Large-scale deforestation and unsustainable land use in general negatively affect livelihoods and lands of indigenous populations (IPBES, 2019[2]). Increasingly resource extraction, commodity production, mining and transport and energy infrastructure, are taking place in areas managed by indigenous populations and local communities (IPBES, 2019[2]). The pressures lead to loss of subsistence and traditional livelihoods and negatively affect health and well-being (from pollution and water insecurity) (IPBES, 2019[2]). The loss of traditional livelihoods has repercussions on traditional management, the transmission of knowledge, the potential for benefit sharing, and finally the ability of indigenous peoples and local communities to sustainably manage, wild and domesticated biodiversity (IPBES, 2019[2]).
8 Consumption of a higher amount of calories than dietary needs.
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Some key challenges towards more sustainable land use were reviewed in this chapter. They included: loss of biodiversity, climate change, zoonotic diseases and alien species invasion, impacts on water resources and loss of livelihoods and lands of indigenous populations. These impacts of unsustainable land use can be, if not reversed, addressed through the introduction of new land-use policies or reforms. The following chapter will review such policies.
