Valuable grasslands and wetlands are increasingly falling victim to industrial agriculture.

[Christian]

Humanity's global hunger for land has reached an intensity unprecedented in history. While the large-scale destruction of forest ecosystems – especially the clearing of rainforests – has long been anchored in the public consciousness as a central challenge for climate protection, a recent analysis now focuses on another critical dimension: the massive transformation of grasslands and wetlands into agricultural land. According to the research team, this phenomenon, which has been largely underestimated until now, is particularly evident in Brazil, Russia, the USA, India and China, where the conversion of these valuable ecosystems into agricultural land is most advanced.
The study shows that many areas where plants do not grow taller than five metres were converted to agricultural land between 2005 and 2020. These non-forested land areas store between 20 and 35 per cent of the world's bound carbon and are home to around one third of the global biodiversity hotspots.
A significant proportion of the new agricultural land is used either to grow feed for livestock or for livestock farming itself. Over a third of the converted land is used solely for animal feed production. In the large countries of South America, the USA and China, but also in the EU, this proportion is even over 50 per cent. In Brazil and Argentina, around 70 per cent of the total converted arable land and around 80 per cent of the land was used for feed for export production. The majority of these animal products therefore go back to rich countries.

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