More Than 75 Percent of Earth's Land Areas Are 'Broken,' Major Report Finds (vice.com)

Like a broken cell phone that can only text or take pictures, but not make a single call, more than 75 percent of the Earth's land areas have lost some or most of their functions, undermining the well-being of the 3.2 billion people that rely on them to produce food crops, provide clean water, control flooding and more. From a report: These once-productive lands have either become deserts, are polluted, or have been deforested and converted for unsustainable agricultural production. This is a major contributor to increased conflict and mass human migration, and left unchecked, could force as many as 700 million to migrate by 2050, according to the world's first comprehensive evidence-based assessment of land degradation, released today in MedellÃn, Colombia.

Land degradation -- including deforestation, soil erosion, and salinity and pollution of fresh water systems -- is also driving species to extinction and aggravating the effects of climate change, the report concludes. It was written by more than 100 leading experts from 45 countries for the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES). IPBES is the 'IPCC for biodiversity,' a scientific assessment of the status of non-human life that makes up the Earth's life support system.

Comments

This seems highly unlikely, and sensationalistic

[SuperKendall]

There is no way you can really claim 75% of the Earth's land mass is "broken". That is insane, it would imply the world was starving and farms everywhere were no longer viable.

I'm imagining they reached this conclusion after declaring any bit of land they could find a candy wrapper or wandering plastic bag as "polluted".

But then it is the "IPCC for biodiversity", so that really says it all as far as how much stock you can place in the report.

Re:Oh for fuck's sake

[mspohr]

Well, if the land is no longer capable of supporting plants and animals, it is broken; it doesn't work; doesn't perform its desired function.
Sometimes it can be fixed. Other times not so much.

Re:This seems highly unlikely, and sensationalisti

[Anonymous Coward]

Of course the article does not "claim 75% of the Earth's land mass is "broken", that is the sensationalist summary. The article says that 75% of the land has lost at least one of its functions. In the countries I live in or have visited recently (UK, Canada, India, Spain), it is pretty clear that often approaching 100% of the land has lost at least one of its functions. That includes almost any land that is urban and agricultural, e.g. where pesticides, ploughing or burning is involved, or land where water is extracted beyond a safe limit.

Many of the denial posts here seem to come from people who may think that a manicured and weed free lawn is 'natural'.

Oh, its worse than that.

[thesupraman]

Its worse than that.

They are classifying ANYTHING as broken.
They classify natural deserts as broken.
They classify natural mountains as broken
They classify ALL human farming (no matter how productive for how long) as broken.

As far as I can tell, its pretty much only natural untouched forests and jungle they consider to be not broken.

Interesting worldview, that..
Someone got a bit caught up in trying to rationalise a stupid-high number.

Re:Oh for fuck's sake

[Anonymous Coward]

Most of the world's farmland is so "broken" that the problem in most countries is people getting fat.

Modern farming practices have in fact reduced biodiversity for decades, and have in many cases impoverished the land of organic materials. It is stupid to try to brush this aside as irrelevant, since much if not most of our food production ultimately relies on a healthy ecology. Farmers use an enormous - and rising - amount of pesticides, artificial fertilisers etc etc, so you would expect that they gain an huge plus from doing this, right? In fact, compared to organic farmers, they only produce 20% more - and then about 30% of all food produced is thrown out uneaten. Doesn't that look stupidly wrong to you?

This isn't about romantic dreams of wild flowers and birds singing prettily in hedges and groves - the ecology forms a very complex network, where almost all parts are connected to each other in some ways that we don't even understand all that well. But we wantonly destroy our remaining wild environments for short term profit, like idiots. Maybe we deserve what is coming, but does the next generation deserve it?