Land use change: what it is and why is it accelerating the climate crisis

There are two key elements to describe the natural terrestrial environment and the relationship with the human activities that take place in it: one is land cover and the other is the use given to that land.

Land cover describes all the physical elements that are located on the Earth's surface. Some of these are of natural origin, such as forests, rivers, lakes, glaciers, bare soils, and so on the other hand, we have those of human origin, such as cities, roads, and so on. Land use, on the other hand, describes any activity derived from the human presence in a territory. These activities have to do with the appropriation of natural resources to generate goods and services (CONABIO, 2020).

Both land cover and land use are concepts that intersect in a common point when humans are present. Although land cover may have a natural origin, let's call it, a jungle, land use allows us to understand the process that forest went through. Sometimes, this land use is maintained as primary vegetation, that is, undisturbed; and other times, anthropocentric pressure is so great that land use becomes human settlement. While one concept describes, the other tells a story.

Both conceptions have the capacity to trace more than just what happens on the ground, but they allow us to model -in a certain way- the future of the planet. As we will see later, what happens or does not happen in the soil has a real impact on climate, ecosystems, people's quality of life and other global phenomena that we may not be so aware of.

One of the main drivers of climate change is land use change.

Soil wasn't always what we humans assigned to it

Soils support most of the life in Earth's emerged areas. They are one of the most important reserves of biodiversity, minerals, genetic resources and geological histories. In addition, they provide us with diverse ecosystem services resulting from the interaction of complex communities of organisms with abiotic resources. Soil is the environment where the vast majority of plant roots find support to extract water and nutrients that, together with fungi and their ability to work symbiotically through forming mycorrhizae, they need to survive. More than 95% of global food production depends on soil (FAO, 2015), directly or indirectly.

Beyond the enormous benefits that soil provides to us humans, it provides the other organisms that inhabit the planet in the same way. The soil captures, infiltrates and stores the water that feeds entire ecosystems, in addition to allowing aquifers to recharge, which are the largest source of fresh water that humans have. Water quality also depends on the soil, since it dampens and traps certain contaminants and prevents them from reaching aquifers, acting as a filter. Under good circumstances, it tends to indirectly modulate the temperature and humidity of the environment, and that is why it can affect the improvement of air quality.

Floors are a fundamental part of biogeochemical cycles, helping to reincorporate the elements found in the atmosphere, such as nitrogen -essential in the nutrition of plants and animals- or carbon, which, through the capture and fixation of this gas, prevents CO2 from being over-concentrated in the atmosphere, thus coping with climate change. On the other hand, soil is also involved in the phosphorus cycle and other essential chemical elements for the maintenance of life.

Apart from all these qualities and virtues with which soils nourish us and where humans have no inference, there are others that were assigned by our species, resulting from a very close relationship between soils and the use that humanity has given them. A relationship that is not always a positive one. Soils fulfill an enormous range of tasks, so to degrade them is to degrade life: thinking about the mere transformation of the soil, from one vocation to another, allows us to imagine the chaos that this can bring.

From changes to changes

Let's start by saying that not all land use change is bad. Although the example with which we opened, where a jungle becomes an urban settlement is a reality - and a very frequent one - land use change can also be for the better; this form is better known under the term of ecological conversion and it goes hand in hand with ecological restoration. Reconversion involves returning the original quality or perhaps a new but functional quality to a floor that was already modified initially. It can dictate the protection of an area by naming it a conservation zone, or of a body of water by delimiting it as a water storage area. Even a switch to agriculture can mean benefits, as is the case of regenerative agriculture. This type of land use transformation ultimately represents a change in use, only for these cases, a beneficial one. Having said that, we must mention that in the generality of land use change, its directionality tends to be different and, therefore, it has very negative implications both for ecosystems and their associated biodiversity, and for humans - even if it seems that we do not perceive it. This is the reason why the concept has an unfavorable meaning and is directly linked to both the environmental and climate crisis.

Land use change, in the vast majority of cases, refers to the dynamics that human beings have in appropriating land. That is, the actions we carry out to completely or partially remove vegetation from land to be used for another activity. Over the past three centuries, land use has changed at an alarming rate around the world. In the last 100 years alone, Mexico has lost more than two and a half million hectares of forest, causing the loss of biodiversity and the desertification that today we live in approximately 51 million hectares of the country (IBERO, s.f.; SEMARNAT, 2015). The 2020 Report of the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization indicates that our country has lost the equivalent of 127,770 hectares of vegetation for this year (FAO, 2020).

Why do we find it alarming to move from a forest to a pasture, or to clear a jungle to plant soybeans? Although it is a reality that anthropocentric requirements cannot be ignored, because in the end, people must eat and survive, when land use changes and a place is deforested, not only do we lose one of the most important reserves of biodiversity - support for food production and biomass capable of capturing carbon - but also, we release the carbon dioxide accumulated in their vegetation. It seems contradictory, but with each clearing, part of that CO2 that was once accumulated indeterminately is lost. In this way, one of the main drivers of climate change is land use change, since it generates different atmospheric and ecological transformations. According to CONAFOR (National Forestry Commission), forest loss accounts for almost 17% of global greenhouse gas emissions. And nearly all forest loss involves human activity.

Acting for the proper management of land cover is a process that demands a radical change in the way in which we relate to our environment and with the rest of the living beings.

In addition to this, another way in which land use change becomes complicit in the crises we are experiencing is when we understand it on a planetary or global scale. Although it might not seem serious to disassemble some hectares for the establishment of some industry, if we do it in all the regions of the Earth where humans live, the exchange rate becomes very high. Not only do we lose ecosystem services essential to human well-being and that of any organism, but we also alter the amount and recurrence of rainfall and droughts, directly modifying the local climate. Knowledge of land cover, as well as global land use change are one of the essential variables which are measured and monitored to make predictions about the climate, and therefore, about the future of our planet.

Understanding the causes of land use change is not a no-brainer. Although the most common direct causes are dismantling by conventional agriculture and conventional intensive and extensive livestock, like many other industries in a secondary way, sociocultural needs and implications play a very interesting role, even if these are considered indirect causes. Beyond the interest of many markets to profit from the gratitude with which nature presents itself, discourses that have historically prevailed, such as those of “progress” or “development”, have generated a historical subject that lives in constant struggle against natural assets, in such a way that we have sought - for more than 500 years - to control and shape them to our liking and convenience. This represents a vicious circle of domination of nature that is not easy to get out of, since it goes beyond an individual decision but belongs to an entire structure. According to a study carried out a few years ago, agricultural production occupied just over a third of the planet's surface (Díaz et al. , 2019). Surface that underwent a severe change in land use. And if thinking that a third of the planet is destined for food production isn't alarming enough, it would be more alarming to think that a lot of that food ends up rotting and wasted.

Another equally disturbing situation of land use change is the fragmentation pattern which is generated with so much metamorphosis. It may not seem serious from our eye view, but if we visualize a location at the landscape level, we will see that the connection between regions that are still preserved or minimally disturbed - commonly referred to under the painful concept of “remnant vegetation” - is increasingly complicated. And what does it mean that this connection is more complicated day by day? That the species that originally inhabited the region without original disturbance will find fewer and fewer ways to move freely, so we are inciting processes of alienation, migration, sometimes speciation as well, but above all, extinguishment.

Knowing that the crisis is beginning at our feet, what can we do to stop land use change?

Let's begin, as an introduction to good practices for land cover care and management, by saying that in Mexico we have a very valuable and powerful tool capable of coping with land use change, however, it is also a forgotten tool in the vast majority of cases. El land use planning (OT) was created with the objective of knowing the country's coverage and then understanding the vocation of each location and terrain, in such a way as to promote development with a more comprehensive vision, where both anthropocentric needs and those of the rest of life on the planet are resolved. The OT is a medium and long-term public policy instrument essential to promote sustainable development and reduce social inequalities, however, many projects in Mexico are approved and financed without a correct territorial analysis, which leads to a transformation, without precedent or planning, of the territory. Always keeping this tool in mind is essential to achieve growth compatible with life. Having said that, it is important to stress that avoiding land use change is everyone's job and not just our decision makers and governments. Acting for the proper management of land cover is a process that demands a radical change in the way in which we relate to our environment and with other living beings, because just as human beings can carry out bad practices, exhaust resources and degrade soils, we also have the capacity to generate solutions and reconcile our work with the conservation of nature.

It is very important when it comes to supporting or honoring ecological restoration projects to show that, beyond the virtues that the project itself can generate, a co-benefit of great importance is that this designated area will hardly be violated under the pressure of land use change.

Activities to conserve our soils are mostly associated with soil erosion control. Erosion is the wear and tear of emerged areas of the planet and occurs naturally by wind and water, however, it is exacerbated by human interference, since when a hill is dismantled - to give just one example - the soil is bare, more susceptible to the removal of small sediments by air and to the removal of matter by rainwater. To avoid erosion we can protect our forests and jungles from deforestation, we can increase silvopastoral and agroforestry systems, we can protect the soil with vegetation cover during periods of rest, we can avoid soil compaction derived from agricultural machinery by migrating to more sustainable ways of producing food, we can improve the roughness of the land to prevent runoff through stone barriers or hillside ditches, we can cultivate surrounding crops and use strips of dense vegetation, and so on, an endless number of others nature-based solutions, but also, what we can do, is awareness and dissemination of the seriousness of transforming the last remnants of vegetation to do another tourism project, another greenhouse, another pasture, another palm oil plantation, another mine, another refinery and so on. Pressure to stop the degradation of the planet is urgent.

On the other hand, activities to prevent land use change are aimed at promoting the long-term permanence of the ecosystem and this is always achieved hand in hand with the owners of the land: these people who live, manage and care for the natural resources that we all depend on to survive. At Toroto, we have given ourselves the task of working with the owners of the land to promote a future that truly keeps all of us in mind. Before moving on to a case study, it is important to say that achieving the permanence of an ecosystem over time does not always imply its pristine conservation; being involved in the process of sustainable management and management is a fundamental part of achieving long-term objectives.

Case study: a water recharge project that protects against erosion and protects the ecosystem from land use change

As part of the need to address land use change and achieve the permanence of an ecosystem as much as possible, in the Apan Valley, Hidalgo, we are implementing a project of nature-based solutions with the objective of improving the state of the vegetation cover and retaining the soil to favor the infiltration of water into the aquifer from which this valley feeds.

With the recharge of the aquifer and with the water balance that this brings, the needs of both the community and the ecosystem are covered, which promotes a better quality of life for those who perceive this benefit. It is very important when it comes to supporting or honoring ecological restoration projects to show that, beyond the virtues that the project itself can generate, a co-benefit of great importance is that this designated area will hardly be violated under the pressure of land use change. Why do we say this so confidently? Because being able to work hand in hand with nature and to be able to receive economic, social and environmental benefits represents a commitment so close that it is not easy to break; it represents a welfare agreement between all the actors involved. At Toroto, we are proud that, through our ecological restoration projects and nature-based solutions, we can help avoid land use change and thus curb the climate and environmental crisis.

Despite the irreparable damage to the environment caused by human decisions, there are actions that can build a better world for future generations. We want to restore ecosystems to recover their ecological functionality. We want to achieve the reconciliation of humanity with nature and the construction of a future that is respectful and compatible with life.

Together, let's face land use change and support ecological restoration and conservation projects that allow us to enjoy our ecosystems, our generation and those to come. Do you have an idea? Contact us.

About the author:

Aileen is Director of Operations at Toroto. Political scientist with a Master's degree in Public Management. He has specialized in the strategic development of projects. Its approach is inclusive and comprehensive. He is a triathlete, loves to cook and loves dogs.

References

• CONABIO. (2020). Land cover monitoring. Available in: https://www.biodiversidad.gob.mx/monitoreo/cobertura-suelo
• Diaz, S.; Settele, J.; Brondízio, E. et al. (2019). The Global Assessment Report on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services. Available at: https://ipbes.net/sites/default/files/2020-02/ipbes_global_assessment_report_summary_for_policymakers_es.pdf
• FAO, IFAD, WHO, WFP and UNICEF. (2020). The State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World 2020. Transforming food systems to promote affordable and healthy diets. Rome, FAO. https://doi.org/10.4060/ca9692es
• FAO (2015). Healthy soils are the basis for healthy food production. Available in: https://www.fao.org/soils-2015/news/news-detail/es/c/277721/#:~:text=Se%20estima%20que%20el%2095,a%20la%20producci%C3%B3n%20de%20alimentos.
• FREE. S.f. The environmental reality of Mexico. Available at: http://trazandoelrumbo.ibero.mx/la-realidad-ambiental-de-mexico/
• SEMARNAT. (2015). Report on the Situation of the Environment in Mexico. Available at: https://apps1.semarnat.gob.mx:8443/dgeia/informe15/tema/pdf/Informe15_completo.pdf