Reconciling Food Production And Biodiversity Conservation

Reconciling Food Production and Biodiversity Conservation: Land Sharing and Land Sparing Compared Ben Phalan, et al. Science 333, 1289 (2011); DOI: 10.1126/science.1208742

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Reconciling Food Production and BiodiversityConservation: Land Sharing and Land Sparing Compared
Ben Phalan,1 Malvika Onial,1 Andrew Balmford,1 Rhys E. Green1,2 The question of how to meet rising food demand at the least cost to biodiversity requires the evaluation of two contrasting alternatives: land sharing, which integrates both objectives on the same land; and land sparing, in which high-yield farming is combined with protecting naturalhabitats from conversion to agriculture. To test these alternatives, we compared crop yields and densities of bird and tree species across gradients of agricultural intensity in southwest Ghana and northern India. More species were negatively affected by agriculture than benefited from it, particularly among species with small global ranges. For both taxa in both countries, land sparing is a morepromising strategy for minimizing negative impacts of food production, at both current and anticipated future levels of production. iven multiple competing demands for land, how might humanity minimize the impact on biodiversity of producing food for 9 billion people (1–3)? One strategy—land sharing—involves integrating biodiversity conservation and food production on the same land, usingwildlife-friendly farming methods (3–6). A contrasting alternative—land sparing—consists of separating land for conservation from land for crops, with high-yield farming facilitating the protection of remaining natural habitats from agricultural expansion (3–7). Achieving land sparing is fundamental to reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation (REDD) and requires the sustainableintensification of agriculture (1, 8, 9). Land sharing is often an aim of agrienvironment and certification schemes, and can result from some forms of agroforestry and or-

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1 Department of Zoology, University of Cambridge, Downing Street, Cambridge CB2 3EJ, UK. 2Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, The Lodge, Sandy SG19 2DL, UK.

ganic farming (10–13). Increases in crop yields do not...