10 Percent of the World's Wilderness Has Been Lost Since 1990s (livescience.com)

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Live Science: Wilderness areas around the world have experienced catastrophic declines over the last two decades, with one-tenth of global wilderness lost since the 1990s, according to a new study. Since 1993, researchers found that a cumulative wilderness area twice the size of Alaska and half the size of the Amazon has been stripped and destroyed. The shrinking wilderness is due, in part, to human activity such as mining, logging, agriculture, and oil and gas exploration. The researchers said their findings underscore the need for international policies to recognize the value of wilderness and to protect wilderness areas from the threats they face. Central Africa and the Amazon saw the most wilderness decline, the researchers found. Of the roughly 1.27 million square miles (3.3 million square kilometers) of global wilderness lost, the Amazon accounted for nearly one-third, and 14 percent of the world's wilderness was lost from Central Africa, according to the study. The researchers determined that only 11.6 million square miles (30.1 million square km) of wilderness is left, which equates to just 20 percent of the Earth's total land mass. The study was published online in the journal Current Biology.

Comments

Re: What's "wilderness?"

[Anonymous Coward]

Most of the universe is wilderness, uninfected by that parasite Life.

Re:Let's talk about the meat of the matter.

[thesupraman]

You really REALLY think that people eating less meat would reduce farming scale in any way?
Thats just... so cute (being kind here).

Hint: high value land use for livestock is very small compared to total farming, and also tends to be concentrated on poorer land.
Hence, if you want to save your wilderness (which, if it is forests, is usually on better quality land), then time to stop eating
those grains and vegetables! they use far FAR more land area, and are the primary cause of deforestation.

Yes, I know that doesnt fit in with you 'I'm a vegetarian, so *I* am saving the planet!' worldview, but suck it up - its the simple
facts of farming. Livestock farming is much lower impact that crop farming.

So yes, thinking about what you eat - and avoid most of the vegetarian diet if you actually want to make an impact on the scale
of farm land use..

Oh, and by the way, water use is also much lower for livestock compared to dietary value (hint: they dont CONSUME water, they
drink it, and believe it or not they then return it to the paddock, helpfully converted to a farm that helps the grass grow - amazing aint
it!)

Perhaps if you spent a little time actually on farms, this would all be clear - however I suspect your inner city apartment is much more
your speed, right? VeganCyclist? I thought so. wouldnt want to get dirty now would we.

Re:Suspicious figures

[Anonymous Coward]

Not to mention basically all of Canada. More than 85% of Canada's population lives within 250km of the US border.

The rest? Tundra. Forest. "The North", beyond the tree line. That's 10million square kilometers right there, minus about 1 million or so.

Outside of a couple of bigger cities, in that 9M remaining, you'll find a town of 2000 people, 200km from another town. You'll find roads where there are houses (cottages) every 10km or so.

Even where I live? I have a 1 acre lot, there are 49 other lots like it, and surrounding it? Preservation land, and Gatineau Park. Houses stuck in the middle of the forest.

I can tell you that there are bears, wolves, cougars, coyotes, badgers, deer, moose, and about 100 other easily viable wild animals in the area.

I think they ignore the fact that 'rural' areas wilderness too. Animals have *always* lived with man around, for we ARE an animal. Only recently, the last few hundred years, have our cities become so large, and so non-rural.

The bear, the coyote, they are USED to 'oh, that is a man home'. Because man lives someplace, does not make it 'non-wilderness'.

Is it suddenly not nature, because of beavers building a beaver dam? Like this?

http://www.seeker.com/largest-beaver-dam-seen-from-space-1765052359.html

Beavers build homes, just like man, from wood.

So, to really define that 'wilderness is lost', one should define the destruction of wilderness that really isn't for the purposes of living in it. Co-existing in it. Rural housing does just that. Small, population 2000, or population 100 people villages do that too.

So I contend that they are including 'any place man lives', instead of 'these areas have man in them, but left most of the trees and wildlife alone'.

There are trees all around my home, trees on my land, wildflowers in my back yard, and pure nature all around.

Yet, I live 25km from Ottawa, ON -- one of the largest Canadian cities.

Foolishness

[ChrisMaple]

TFA states that once an area ceases to be wilderness, it can never be wilderness again.

By about 1840, nearly all of New England was farmland. No wilderness, except for areas too steep or rocky for agriculture. Now, most has reverted to forest. Keeping an area open requires constant effort; trees colonize unmowed areas pretty quickly.