Land use in tropical regions: Biodiversity loss due to agricultural trade three times higher than thought
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Exporting agricultural products from tropical regions to China, the U.S., the Middle East, and Europe is three times more harmful to biodiversity than previously assumed.
In a study appearing in Nature Sustainability, researchers from the Technical University of Munich (TUM) and the ETH Zurich have shown this by tracking how agricultural exports from 1995 to 2022 affected land use changes in the producing countries. Brazil, Indonesia, Mexico, and Madagascar are particularly affected by species loss.
It has long been known that intensive land use in tropical regions impacts local biodiversity, but the role of trade has been underestimated, according to researchers from TUM and ETH Zurich. Previously, 20 to 30% of biodiversity loss in these regions was assumed to be due to agricultural exports.
