Land sparing

Land sparing is a conservation strategy that concentrates agricultural production on less land to leave larger areas for nature. Its effectiveness depends on whether higher yields actually reduce agricultural expansion.

Agricultural intensification: Increasing agricultural output per unit of land, labor, capital, or other inputs. Higher output per hectare is the production strategy intended to free land for habitat.
Land sharing: A conservation strategy that combines agricultural production and wildlife habitat within the same landscape. It favors wildlife-friendly farming across working land rather than separating production from protected habitat.
Agricultural intensification in Brazil: The expansion of high-output farming systems in Brazil, especially in the Cerrado and Amazon frontier regions. Brazil shows how production growth can coincide with either habitat protection or further land conversion.
Biodiversity: The variety of life across genes, species, and ecosystems. The strategy is judged largely by its effects on biodiversity across both farms and natural areas.
Land-sparing versus land-sharing debate: A conservation debate over whether wildlife benefits more from separating intensive farming and habitat or integrating nature into farmland. This debate tests the strategy against its principal alternative using species and landscape evidence.
Land-use change: The conversion or alteration of land cover and land use by human activity. Sparing benefits nature only when production changes prevent conversion of natural land.
Wildlife-friendly farming: Farming practices designed to maintain or improve conditions for wild species on agricultural land. These practices are central to the habitat-within-farmland alternative to strict land sparing.
Protected area: A geographically defined area managed to achieve long-term conservation of nature and associated ecosystem services. Protected areas can secure habitat that land-sparing policies aim to leave outside production.
Ecosystem services: Benefits people obtain from ecosystems, including food production, water regulation, and pollination. Land-use choices affect services supplied by both farms and spared habitat.
Borlaug hypothesis: The proposition that raising crop yields can reduce pressure to convert natural land for agriculture. It captures the assumed link between intensification and avoided habitat conversion.

Linked from 14 pages