Across the world, farmland is replacing some of our most important ecosystems.
We’ve known for years that agriculture is rapidly consuming forests — an issue the world urgently needs to tackle. Yet this problem doesn’t stop at the forest’s edge.
New research from WRI, Land & Carbon Lab, Rainforest Alliance, and the Senckenberg Biodiversity and Climate Research Centre indicates that the world lost as much as 95 million hectares of non-forest natural ecosystems, including grasslands, savannas and wetlands, to annual crops between 2005 and 2020. A comparable area (95 million hectares more) was likely converted to pasture. Together, this is an area nearly as large as Indonesia — and roughly four times the amount of forest that was lost to annual crops and pasture over the same period.
This study only assesses annual crops which are replanted every year, such as soy, wheat and corn. It does not include perennial crops or tree crops, such as oil palm, coffee or rubber, which make up a large share of forest conversion. It is less well known how big a role they play outside of forests.
Though sometimes overlooked in conservation efforts, non-forest ecosystems are vital to people and the planet. Grasslands are estimated to hold between 20% and 35% of land-based carbon stores. Wetlands (with and without trees) hold another 20%-30%, despite covering much less area. Non-forest ecosystems provide crucial wildlife habitat, protect soil, sustain fresh water supplies, and underpin food security and livelihoods for over a billion people around the world.
Companies and governments alike have begun taking important steps to address deforestation driven by agriculture. But these policies and commitments often don’t extend to non-forest ecosystems. Having a clearer picture of conversion across all ecosystems is critical to truly understanding and preventing further loss of grasslands, savannas and wetlands as well as forests.
This research offers a starting point, providing the first global look at which commodities are associated with ecosystem conversion outside of forests and where the impacts may be greatest.
What’s Driving Non-Forest Ecosystem Loss?
Crop expansion accounted for about half of the ecosystem conversion we tallied across grasslands, wetlands and savannas, with pasture expansion making up the other half. Understanding which crops are associated with this conversion is key, especially for companies and stakeholders working to assess and address it.
Much of the ecosystem conversion in our study was associated with globally traded commodity crops like soy, corn, rapeseed, cotton and sugarcane. While sometimes eaten, these crops are commonly used for things like animal feed, fiber or biofuel. Companies and governments that purchase or import these products can play an important role in tackling conversion through more sustainable sourcing.
Other crops, such as rice, vegetables, pulses and (in some places) corn, tend to be grown primarily for food and may be central to local food security. Environmental impacts associated with these crops may be better addressed through domestic policy than through trade policy or corporate action. Where corporate action is appropriate, food security implications should be considered.
Because many of these products enter global supply chains, demand for a commodity in one country can often drive ecosystem conversion in another — effectively outsourcing it. For example, demand for soy in China is associated with extensive ecosystem conversion in Brazil.
Factoring in Livestock
Pasture1 for livestock replaced roughly as much area of non-forest ecosystems between 2005 and 2020 as all the crops we evaluated combined. In some of the countries with the greatest total conversion, including Brazil, Australia and Russia, conversion to pasture was much larger than conversion to cropland.
But pasture is only part of livestock’s land footprint. Cropland expansion also needs to be factored in, because a substantial share is used to grow livestock feed. In this study, over a third (34%) of the total area converted to cropland was used for feed. In some places, such as Brazil, Argentina, the U.S., China and the EU, feed accounted for over half of cropland conversion. International demand plays a major role here: In places like Brazil and Argentina, 80% of the feed grown on converted land was destined for foreign markets like China and Europe.
When pasture and crops used for feed are added together, livestock production is the single biggest replacement of non-forest ecosystems globally. In other words: Meat and dairy simply cannot be ignored in efforts to rein in agricultural expansion and protect natural ecosystems.
What Does This Mean for Sustainable Supply Chains?
As global demand for agricultural commodities takes an ever-bigger toll on the world’s ecosystems, large companies that produce and source these products have a responsibility to identify and minimize impacts linked to their businesses and supply chains. While forest protections have been increasing, policies safeguarding other valuable ecosystems have lagged. This study helps fill in a critical blind spot. With better information about where ecosystem conversion is happening and which products are most associated with it, companies, governments and NGOs can design stronger policies, track progress, and create incentives that reward protecting natural ecosystems.
Information about where ecosystem conversion is happening outside of forests can also help prevent unintended consequences from other policy decisions. For example, there is evidence that increased forest protection in the Amazon in the early 2000s lowered deforestation linked to soy in the region. But it was also associated with increased conversion in the neighboring Cerrado, which is one of the world’s most biodiverse savannas. Including non-forest ecosystem protection in responsible supply chain policies can help prevent displacing agricultural impacts from forests to grasslands, savannas and wetlands.
How Can Companies Help Curb Ecosystem Loss?
It’s not one or the other — the world needs to protect forests and other vital ecosystems. This doesn’t require reinventing the wheel; often, non-forest ecosystems can be woven into existing sustainability goals.
There are already positive examples. The Accountability Framework initiative provides detailed guidance for companies on setting and implementing commitments to eliminate both deforestation and conversion of other natural ecosystems from their supply chains, also known as “Deforestation and Conversion-Free” (DCF). Nearly a quarter of major soy-sourcing companies and nearly a fifth of major beef-sourcing companies already have commitments that include protection of non-forest natural ecosystems. Through the Science-Based Targets Network (SBTN) and Science Based Targets Initiative (SBTi) — which support companies in setting robust nature and climate goals, respectively — over 300 companies have committed to reducing emissions from conversion or eliminating conversion of all natural ecosystems from their operations and supply chains.
Companies can also begin engaging with their suppliers by communicating clear policies and goals to not purchase products from farms that have cleared natural ecosystems. And they can take steps to incentivize ecosystem protection by producers.
Addressing conversion is especially salient for companies that produce or source meat or dairy products, due to the outsized footprint of livestock grazing and feed production. The Greenhouse Gas Protocol Land Sector and Removals Standard requires that companies with animal products in their value chains account for the land area used for grazing as well as the cropland area used to grow feed, and that companies report on their full land-use-change emissions across all ecosystems and land-based products.
With a finite amount of land on the planet, governments and companies must think about how to use farmland more efficiently and reduce pressure on remaining natural ecosystems. Given that livestock drives such a large share of ecosystem conversion, measures to shift diets high in meat toward more plant-based foods can help lessen the need to convert more land for feed and pasture. Reducing food loss and waste is another major opportunity to boost efficiency; as much as 40% of the food the world produces today goes uneaten.
Finally, using land for crop-based biofuels and other non-food products can increase ecosystem conversion by increasing the total global land area devoted to growing crops. Policies should seek to not further increase the area of cropland dedicated to biofuel production.
This is an early global study of non-forest ecosystem conversion, and there’s a need for additional research and targeted solutions in this arena. More detailed analyses in specific sourcing regions, using contextualized data sets, will be needed to pinpoint specific locations of recent commodity-driven conversion, support engagement and action to reduce ecosystem clearance, and monitor progress over time.
But companies don’t have to wait. They can take action today to help ensure we can feed the world and protect the ecosystems all of us rely on.
1 To date, conversion of non-forest ecosystems to pasture has been difficult to quantify at the global scale. Pasture can look similar to natural grasslands from space, and historically, many land-cover products haven’t distinguished between them. This analysis uses new grassland data that separates natural and semi-natural grasslands from cultivated grasslands (where grasses and other forbs are intentionally planted or managed, here called pastures) to take an important first step toward estimating conversion to pasture worldwide.
