Nature’s Dangerous Decline IPBES Report
Staggering statistics released by the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES).
Key Statistics and Facts from the Report based on Food and Agriculture
IPBES (2019)
- 300%: increase in food crop production since 1970
- 23%: land areas that have seen a reduction in productivity due to land degradation
- >75%: global food crop types that rely on animal pollination
- US$235 to US$577 billion: annual value of global crop output at risk due to pollinator loss
- 5.6 gigatons: annual CO2 emissions sequestered in marine and terrestrial ecosystems – equivalent to 60% of global fossil fuel emission
- +/-11%: world population that is undernourished
- 100 million: hectares of agricultural expansion in the tropics from 1980 to 2000, mainly cattle ranching in Latin America (+/-42 million ha), and plantations in Southeast Asia (+/-7.5 million ha, of which 80% is oil palm), half of it at the expense of intact forests
- 3%: increase in land transformation to agriculture between 1992 and 2015, mostly at the expense of orests
- >33%: world’s land surface (and +/-75% of freshwater resources) devoted to crop or livestock production
- 12%: world’s ice-free land used for crop production
- 25%: world’s ice-free land used for grazing (+/-70% of drylands)
- +/-25%: greenhouse gas emissions caused by land clearing, crop production and fertilization, with animal-based food contributing 75% to that figure
- +/-30%: global crop production and global food supply provided by small land holdings (<2 ha), using +/-25% of agricultural land, usually maintaining rich agrobiodiversity
- $100 billion: estimated level of financial support in OECD countries (2015) to agriculture that is potentially harmful to the environment
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