Land use

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Bioenergy > Issues > Land use

This page provides information about biofuels, bioenergy and land use.

A landscape of forests and terraced fields, central Sri Lanka.

Introduction

Land use is a critical notion to understand direct and indirect impacts of any anthropic activity on landscapes. The amount of land available in a given country or region must theoretically be compared to the country/region's needs in terms of food production, energy production, development of infrastructures or nature conservation, in order to establish a consistent and fair global land use strategy. Countries may have a deficit or an excess of land available; in the first case, land use becomes a problematic equation as priorities must be established. Whereas food production and conservation of nature should be the first priorities, timber, tourism or energy production are sometimes given way to generate quick profit.

Land use change as such is not necessarily an issue, because the new use that is made from land can be more beneficial for nature and people than the former one. However, land use change may also be responsible for a massive discharge of the carbon originally stored in the soil. The consequence is an increase of the amount of greenhouse gases (GHG) in the atmosphere, which can, in the case of biofuels, considerably reduce the overall saving of GHG over the biofuel's life cycle. Complex issues arise when a change in land use displaces the former use into another region within or outside the country of concern. The consequences of this indirect land use change (iLUC) should theoretically be accounted in the impact assessment of the original production, which caused the iLUC. However, the complexity of this issue (especially, determining where iLUC happens and its intensity) makes difficult its inclusion in the impact assessment.

Publications

• Corn Ethanol and Wildlife - How increases in corn plantings are affecting habitat and wildlife in the Prairie Pothole Region (PDF file), National Wildlife Federation, 2010.

• Bioenergy Development: Issues and Impacts for Poverty and Natural Resource Management, by Elizabeth Cushion, Adrian Whiteman and Gerhard Dieterle. Published by the World Bank.

• From Source to Sink - Reducing Commodity Agriculture's Impacts on Natural Lands - December 2009, National Wildlife Federation.

Chart from the 2007a IPCC climate change assessment report shows the contribution by sector to total anthropogenic GHG emissions in 2004, in terms of CO2 equivalent. Heat trapping GHGs result in global temperature changes that effect our climate systems. The label "Forestry" in this breakdown includes global deforestation. This form of land use change, combined with agriculture, accounts for nearly 1/3 of total annual GHG emissions. Source (PDF File)

• The Little REDD+ Book: An updated guide to governmental and non-governmental proposals for reducing emissions from deforestation and degradation (PDF file) - 2009 publication by the Global Canopy Programme Oxford, (UK) on REDD+ (REDD Plus), the REDD framework, governmental and non-governmental REDD proposal summaries, and current research on the scope, distribution and financing of REDD. [1]

• The Natural Fix? The Role of Ecosystems in Climate Mitigation, A UNEP Rapid Response Assessment (PDF). Trumper, K., et al. June 2009. United Nations Environment Programme, UNEPWCMC, Cambridge, UK. (ISBN: 978-82-7701-057-1).
  • Includes information on land use, ecosystem services, carbon sequestration, agriculture, and biodiversity conservation and how these relate to global climate change.

• UN-IPCC Special Report on Land Use, Land-Use Change And Forestry, by Robert T. Watson (Chief Scientist and Director of Environmentally and Socially Sustainable Development at The World Bank and Chairman of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change), Ian R. Noble (Professor of Global Change Research in the Institute of Advanced Studies at the Australian National University and Chief Executive Officer of the Cooperative Research Centre for Greenhouse Accounting at the Research School of Biological Sciences, Australian National University), Bert Bolin (former Professor of Meteorology at the University of Stockholm and Director of the International Institute for Meteorology, and former Scientific Director at the European Space Research Organisation. Dr. Bolin served as Chairman of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change from 1988-1997) N.H. Ravindranath (Principal Research Scientist at the Centre for ASTRA and Ecological Sciences, Indian Institute of Science), David J. Verardo (Environmental Scientist for the IPCC Working Group II Technical Support Unit, Washington DC, USA) and David J. Dokken (Project Administrator for the IPCC Working Group II Technical Support Unit, Washington DC, USA).

• RSB Workshop on biofuels, deforestation and land-use change, held in São Paulo on the 20th and 21st of November 2008. Presentations included LU case studies from Central and South America, Asia and West Africa, mapping and monitoring of sugarcane expansion in Brazil, and the state-of-the art in terms of LUC modelling.

Issues

Deforestation for slash-and-burn agriculture in the tropics.

• Land use change
  • Direct land use change
  • Indirect land use change - See the page Indirect land use impacts of biofuels
  • Land use change modeling

Events

2010

• 12 January 2010, Washington, D.C., USA: World Bank InfoShop event, Bioenergy Development. (Themes: bioenergy, development, environment, land use, natural resource management, poverty)

• 15-17 March 2010, Amsterdam, The Netherlands: World Biofuels Markets. (Themes: aviation, biodiesel, ethanol, feedstocks, iLUC (land use), next-generation feedstocks, standards, sustainability)
  • Includes a "Sustainable Biofuels Awards" evening.

2009

• 5 June 2009, Bonn, Germany: Agriculture, land and climate change: side-event at the UNFCCC meeting Participants include representatives from FAO and ICRAF. (Themes: Climate change, land use change, agriculture, Europe, sustainable).

• 2 June 2009, Bonn, Germany: A Global Mechanism for REDD+: side-event at the UNFCCC meeting Hosted by The Nature Conservancy. (Themes: Climate change, REDD, land use change, forests).

• 13 January 2009, Washington, D.C., USA: Global Trade and Environmental Effects of EU Biofuels Policies. Sponsored by the Center for Global Development (CGD). (Themes: European Union, land use, trade)

• 30 March-1 April 2009, Helsinki, Finland: Land Use Changes due to Bioenergy - Quantifying and Managing Climate Change and Other Environmental Impacts (PDF file). Organized by IEA Bioenergy Task 38. (Themes: land use change, climate change)

2008

News

2010

• The Case Against Biofuels: Probing Ethanol’s Hidden Costs, 11 March 2010 opinion piece by C. Ford Runge in Yale environment360: "Despite strong evidence that growing food crops to produce ethanol is harmful to the environment and the world’s poor, the Obama administration is backing subsidies and programs that will ensure that half of the U.S.’s corn crop will soon go to biofuel production."
  • "Yet a close look at their impact on food security and the environment — with profound effects on water, the eutrophication of our coastal zones from fertilizers, land use, and greenhouse gas emissions — suggests that the biofuel bandwagon is anything but green."[2]

• Amazon rainforest will bear cost of biofuel policies in Brazil, 8 February 2010 by Mongabay: "Business-as-usual agricultural expansion to meet biofuel production targets for 2020 will take a heavy toll on Brazil's Amazon rainforest in coming years, undermining the potential emissions savings of transitioning from fossil fuels to biofuels, warns a new paper published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS). The research suggests that intensification of cattle ranching, combined with efforts to promote high-yielding oil crops like oil palm could lessen forecast greenhouse gas emissions from indirect land use in the region."
  • The researchers find "that while relatively little forest land will be directly converted for biofuel production, large swathes of rainforest and cerrado will be indirectly impacted through displacement of cattle ranching, presently the dominant form of land use in the Brazilian Amazon."
  • "'To fill the biofuel production targets for 2020, sugarcane would require an additional 57,200 [square kilometers] and soybean an additional 108,100 sq km. Roughly 88% of this expansion (145,700 sq km) would take place in areas previously used as rangeland,' the authors write."
  • The authors "'argue that to avoid the undesired indirect land-use change by biofuels presented here, strategies for cooperation between the cattle ranching and biofuel-growing sectors should be implemented".
  • See the PNAS paper, Lapola et al. Indirect land-use changes can overcome carbon savings from biofuels in Brazil.[3]

• White House Clears Rules on Indirect GHG Emissions From Biofuels, 2 February 2010 by Greenwire/New York Times: "The White House has completed its review of controversial U.S. EPA regulations aimed at curbing renewable fuels' greenhouse gas emissions."
  • "The standard requires EPA to assess the "lifecycle" emissions of biofuels -- weighing the emissions from growing crops, producing fuels made from them, and distributing and using the fuels."
  • "The EPA proposal measures emissions from "indirect" land-use changes associated with biofuels -- such as land that is deforested in other countries because of increased crop growth in the United States. The agency concluded, depending on the time frames modeled, that traditional corn ethanol could have a slightly larger emissions footprint than gasoline when land-use changes are factored in."[4]

Change in Corn Plantings as Percent of County Area, 2004-2007 in the U.S. Prairie Pothole Region.

• Corn Crowds Out Wildlife in Prairie Pothole Region, 13 January 2010 press release by National Wildlife Federation: "A new report shows how government incentives for corn ethanol are driving farmers to shift land into corn production, resulting in significant decreases in grassland bird populations throughout the fragile Prairie Pothole Region. The study analyzes the current and potential impacts of increased corn ethanol production on wildlife and habitat in the Prairie Pothole states of Iowa, Minnesota, North Dakota and South Dakota."
  • "By identifying areas with the most dramatic land-use changes in Prairie Pothole states, researchers were able to see where there are 'hotspots' of increased corn plantings and habitat loss."[5]
  • Download the full report:
    • Corn Ethanol and Wildlife - How increases in corn plantings are affecting habitat and wildlife in the Prairie Pothole Region (PDF file)

• Lawsuit: LCFS violates US Constitution, 4 January 2010 by Todd J. Guerrero in Ethanol Producer Magazine: "In a case that will be closely watched throughout the country, Growth Energy and the Renewable Fuels Association recently filed suit in federal district court alleging that California’s low carbon fuel standard (LCFS) violates the federal Constitution."
  • "Adopted by the California Air Resources Board in 2009, the LCFS is intended to reduce California greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by reducing the carbon intensity of transportation fuels used in California by an average of 10 percent by the year 2020. Carbon intensity is a measure of the direct and indirect GHG emissions associated with each step of a fuel’s full life cycle – the 'well-to-wheels' for fossil fuels and 'seed-to-wheels' for biofuels."
  • "For corn ethanol, indirect land use changes are a significant source of additional GHG emissions....Given the LCFS’ requirement of reduced carbon intensity, it’s not difficult to see that corn ethanol will be severely disadvantaged in California."[6]

2009

• African Jatropha Boom Raises Concerns, 8 October 2009 by The New York Times Green Inc. blog: "Once the darling of biofuel enthusiasts, jatropha is raising concerns."
  • "In a report leaked to The East African newspaper last week, Envirocare, an environmental and human rights organization, highlighted the impact of the jatropha trade in Tanzania — including concerns over the displacement of farmers, water consumption, and the substitution of food crops for biofuels."[7]

• The Other Inconvenient Truth: The Crisis in Global Land Use, 5 October 2009 by Yale Environment 360: "Our use of land, particularly for agriculture, is absolutely essential to the success of the human race. We depend on agriculture to supply us with food, feed, fiber, and, increasingly, biofuels. Without a highly efficient, productive, and resilient agricultural system, our society would collapse almost overnight."
  • "[L]and use is also one of the biggest contributors to global warming. Of the three most important man-made greenhouse gasses — carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide — land use and agricultural practices, including tropical deforestation, emit 30 percent of the total. That’s more than the emissions from all the world’s passenger cars, trucks, trains and planes, or the emissions from all electricity generation or manufacturing. Compared to any other human activity, land use and agriculture are the greatest emitters of greenhouse gasses. The vast majority comes from deforestation, methane emissions from animals and rice fields, and nitrous oxide emissions from heavily fertilized fields. Yet, for some reason, agriculture has been largely able to avoid the attention of emissions reductions policies."[8]

• In Search of Wildlife-friendly Biofuels: Could Native Prairie Plants Be the Answer, 29 September 2009 by NewsWise/Michigan Technological University: "The unintended consequence of crop-based biofuels may be the loss of wildlife habitat, particularly that of the birds who call this country’s grasslands home, say researchers from Michigan Technological University and The Nature Conservancy."
  • In an article in BioScience, researchers "analyze the impacts on wildlife of the burgeoning conversion of grasslands to corn for ethanol production".
  • "Most of the recent expansion in land planted to corn involves land previously used to grow other crops. But there is evidence that more and more land that had been enrolled in the federal Conservation Reserve Program (CRP) is also being converted to crop production."[9]

• Senators scrap proposal to shield biofuels industry from EPA rules, 27 September 2009 by desmoinesregister.com: "Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Ia., and six other senators won't go forward with legislation that would have protected the biofuel industry from some proposed Environmental Protection Agency rules....The senators proposed an amendment to an agency spending bill that would have barred the agency from considering impacts on international land use in evaluating the carbon footprint of U.S.-produced ethanol and biodiesel."[10]

• IDB releases new version of Biofuels Sustainability Scorecard, 11 September 2009 by InterAmerican Development Bank: "The Inter-American Development Bank has released a new version of its Biofuels Sustainability Scorecard, which will enable users to better anticipate the impacts of potential biofuel projects on sensitive issues such as indigenous rights, carbon emissions from land use change, and food security."[11]

• New paper by Tim Searchinger: Evaluating Biofuels: The Consequences of Using Land to Make Fuel (PDF file), published by the German Marshall Fund of the United States - 2009.
  • "If not used for biofuels, land would typically already be growing plants that are removing carbon from the atmosphere."
  • "Many controllable factors could in theory change the world land use situation for good or bad, but if those factors are independent of biofuels, they neither make biofuels a better strategy nor a worse one."
  • "To the extent biofuel critics have blamed these rises in crop price for increased retail food prices in the United States and Europe, they have probably exaggerated. Crop prices are a small fraction of the retail food prices paid in grocery stores, and an even smaller fraction in restaurants. But the impact on the poor in developing countries is large, particularly on the roughly one billion people who live on $1 per day or less and who are likely already chronically malnourished, and the three billion who live on less than $2 per day."

• Land Use Offers Valuable Solutions for Protecting the Climate, 7 July 2009 by SolveClimate: "It’s well-known that the trick to reducing net carbon emissions relies on not emitting so much of the stuff and finding a way to get it back where it belongs....That’s where the land comes in. Thirty percent of greenhouse gases come from 'the land-use sector.'...So let's talk farming. Let's talk trees. And let's talk land degradation."
  • "That’s the argumentative thread running through the [Worldwatch] Institute's newest report, Mitigating Climate Change through Food and Land Use, by Sara J. Scherr and Sajal Sthapit."
  • "The first step is simply realizing the magnitude of agricultural or forestry-based contribution to emissions and, potentially, to absorption."
  • "Carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases also seep into the atmosphere as the secondary effects of land-use changes. Exposed soil erodes more easily, and oxidizes more readily, releasing carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, while nitrogen fertilizers cause soil to emit nitrous oxide, an enormously potent greenhouse gas. The gist is that land-use change is a big problem—close to a third of the problem."[12]

• (Obama) Administration addressing ethanol, climate change, 5 May 2009 by Associated Press: "President Barack Obama directed more loan guarantees and economic stimulus money for biofuels research and told the Agriculture Department to find ways to preserve biofuel industry jobs."
  • "Obama said an interagency group also would explore ways to get automakers to produce more cars that run on ethanol and to find ways to make available more ethanol fueling stations."
  • "The reassurances to the ethanol industry came as the Environmental Protection Agency made public its initial analysis on what impact the massive expansion of future ethanol use could have on climate change. Rejecting industry and agricultural interests' arguments, it said its rules...will take into account increased greenhouse gas emissions as more people plant ethanol crops at the expense of forests and other vegetation and land use is influenced worldwide by the demand for biofuels."
  • "The ethanol industry and farm-state members of Congress had wanted only a comparison of direct emissions".[13]

• Agrofuels in the Americas: An Irrational Strategy, 28 April 2009 by Organic Consumers Association: "The Food First report, Agrofuels in the Americas (PDF file), looks back over the last several years of the ethanol/biodiesel boom. The authors conclude that using crop land to produce fuel is an irrational strategy – one that negatively affects climate change, the environment, food security, and rural development worldwide."
  • "According to a study in the report by Guatemalan researcher Dr. Laura Hurtado, the agrofuels boom has already led to 'considerable loss in the amount of land available for food cultivation' in Guatemala;...small family farmers are being pushed off their land, agribusiness firms are expanding colonial-style plantations, and the human right to food of thousands of indigenous farmers has been systematically violated."
  • "Similar evidence from Brazilian activist Maria Louisa Mendonça finds that 80% of Brazil's carbon dioxide emissions come from deforestation in the Amazon – largely driven by the expansion of soy monocultures....Mendonça debunks the myth that agrofuels are good for rural development in Brazil, citing numerous workers rights violations, industry concentration, health risks to workers, and land evictions."[14]
  • Download the Food First report, Agrofuels in the Americas (PDF file).

• Brazil soy growers fear green backlash, plant trees, 17 March 2009 by Reuters: "Soybean farmer Clovis Cortezia has started replanting native rainforest trees on his farm to meet demands of international buyers keen to be environmentally responsible."
  • "Like other growers in Brazil's No. 1 soy-producing state Mato Grosso, Cortezia started replanting trees native to Brazil's center-west savanna in 2007".
  • "Environmental and consumer groups, particularly in Europe, have long complained that rapid expansion of Brazil's soy frontier was speeding up the deforestation of the Amazon" as part of cooperative program involving local governments and The Nature Conservancy (TNC)."[15]

• Biofuels Boom Could Fuel Rainforest Destruction, Researcher Warns, 14 February 2009 by Science Daily: "Farmers across the tropics might raze forests to plant biofuel crops, according to new research by Holly Gibbs, a postdoctoral researcher at Stanford's Woods Institute for the Environment."
  • "Gibbs' predictions are based on her new study, in which she analyzed detailed satellite images collected between 1980 and 2000. The study is the first to do such a detailed characterization of the pathways of agricultural expansion throughout the entire tropical region."
  • However, Gibbs said that "planting biofuel croplands on degraded land -- land that has been previously cultivated but is now providing very low productivity due to salinity, soil erosion, nutrient leaching, etc. -- could have an overall positive environmental impact".
  • "Both Brazil and Indonesia contain significant areas of degraded land -- in Brazil, the total area may be as large as California -- that could be replanted with crops, thereby decreasing the burden on forested land. 'But this is challenging without new policies or economic incentives to encourage establishing crops on these lands,' Gibbs said."
  • "'This is a major concern for the global environment,' Gibbs said. 'As we look toward biofuels to help reduce climate change we must consider the rainforests and savannas that may lie in the pathway of expanding biofuel cropland.'"[16]

• Biofuel carbon footprint not as big as feared, Michigan State University research says, 15 January 2009 by MSU News: "Publications ranging from the journal Science to Time magazine have blasted biofuels for significantly contributing to greenhouse gas emissions, calling into question the environmental benefits of making fuel from plant material. But a new analysis by Michigan State University scientists says these dire predictions are based on a set of assumptions that may not be correct."
  • "'Our analysis shows that crop management is a key factor in estimating greenhouse gas emissions associated with land use change associated with biofuels,' [MSU University Professor Bruce] Dale said. 'Sustainable management practices, such as no-till farming and planting cover crops, can reduce the time it takes for biofuels to overcome the carbon debt to three years for grassland conversion and 14 years for temperate zone forest conversion.'" [17]

2008

References

• Climate change, biofuels and eco-social impacts in the Brazilian Amazon and Cerrado (PDF file). by Donald Sawyer. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B, Volume 363, February 2008, Pages 1747–1752.
  • This article cautions that the Brazilian Amazon and Cerrado regions are at risk of conversion to degraded pasture as a result of biofuels expansion, and offers policy recommendations to mitigate these impacts.

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