Land use intensification: The promise of sustainability and the reality of trade-offs

TY - CHAP

T1 - Land use intensification

T2 - The promise of sustainability and the reality of trade-offs

AU - Martin, Adrian

AU - Coolsaet, Brendan

AU - Corbera, Esteve

AU - Dawson, Neil

AU - Fisher, Janet

AU - Franks, Phil

AU - Mertz, Ole

AU - Pascual, Unai

AU - Rasmussen, Laura Vang

AU - Ryan, Casey

PY - 2018

Y1 - 2018

N2 - Land use intensification is widely considered to be an essential strategy for achieving global goals to eliminate poverty and to avoid damaging losses of ecosystem services. This chapter investigates whether current land use intensification activities are achieving these twin goals. To do so, it reviews a body of academic literature that reports on case studies in which both social and ecological outcomes of intensification are reported. There are two main findings. First, there are relatively few cases in which land use intensification is clearly succeeding in these twinned objectives. There are many more cases in which, for example, short-term income or productivity gains from land use intensification are resulting in long-term diminution of biodiversity and ecosystem services. Studies with longer-term perspectives are already seeing how such trade-offs are leading to negative feedbacks for human wellbeing, especially for marginalised social groups. Secondly, we learn most from those studies that a) go beyond measuring production and income to measure multiple dimensions of wellbeing and ecosystem services, b) monitor dynamics of outcomes across longer time periods and across landscapes and c) disaggregate outcome measures to identify outcomes for different social groups.

AB - Land use intensification is widely considered to be an essential strategy for achieving global goals to eliminate poverty and to avoid damaging losses of ecosystem services. This chapter investigates whether current land use intensification activities are achieving these twin goals. To do so, it reviews a body of academic literature that reports on case studies in which both social and ecological outcomes of intensification are reported. There are two main findings. First, there are relatively few cases in which land use intensification is clearly succeeding in these twinned objectives. There are many more cases in which, for example, short-term income or productivity gains from land use intensification are resulting in long-term diminution of biodiversity and ecosystem services. Studies with longer-term perspectives are already seeing how such trade-offs are leading to negative feedbacks for human wellbeing, especially for marginalised social groups. Secondly, we learn most from those studies that a) go beyond measuring production and income to measure multiple dimensions of wellbeing and ecosystem services, b) monitor dynamics of outcomes across longer time periods and across landscapes and c) disaggregate outcome measures to identify outcomes for different social groups.

U2 - 10.4324/9780429507090

DO - 10.4324/9780429507090

M3 - Book chapter

AN - SCOPUS:85048756903

SN - 9781138580831

SP - 94

EP - 110

BT - Ecosystem Services and Poverty Alleviation

PB - Routledge

ER -