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Abandoned farmland and the environment

September 4, 2025 By EarthWise Leave a Comment

Abandoned farmland has been increasing dramatically in recent decades. Estimates are that a billion acres – an area half the size of Australia – have been relinquished from cultivation globally. While more and more of the tropics have been cultivated in recent times, the global amount of land used for agriculture has been in decline since 2001. In the past 30 years, arable land in the United States has declined by almost a sixth. The situation in Europe is similar. Huge amounts of the former Soviet Union now lie abandoned.

Farmland is abandoned for various reasons. It may suffer from damaged soil so that crop yields are too low to be worth the effort. Farm owners may become too old or be physically unable to continue farming. Many younger people head for jobs in the cities and more attractive opportunities. Wars, natural and man-made disasters, and political turmoil have all contributed.

Another form of largely ignored lands are so-called degraded forests. These are forests that were logged in the past but are no longer productive and aren’t protected either. These places also represent unused land with great potential value.

Ecologists point to the potential of these lands as neglected resources for rewilding efforts, improving biodiversity, and for increasing natural ways to capture carbon. Left to its own devices, nature will usually reclaim abandoned places. This generally provides benefits for biodiversity and climate. But mapping, studying, managing, and protecting the increasingly vast tracts of abandoned land could increase their potential to contribute to climate change mitigation and the restoration of species and their habitats.

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Abandoned Lands: A Hidden Resource for Restoring Biodiversity

Photo, posted January 26, 2023, courtesy of Larry Syverson via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio

Global climate progress is too slow

December 28, 2023 By EarthWise Leave a Comment

According to a new report by the World Resources Institute, the world is making progress on climate, but the progress is not fast enough. The report looked at 37 indicators of climate progress towards the goals set forth by the Paris Agreement. In some areas, the progress has been substantial, but in six areas, the world has been moving in the wrong direction entirely.

The rapid growth of clean energy has brought the world to the brink of peak fossil fuels, but to avoid the catastrophic effects of warming, countries need to build out wind and solar power nearly twice as fast and shut down coal plants seven times faster. There has been progress in curbing deforestation, but the world needs to stem forest loss four times more quickly. More work is needed to clean up heavy industry and the consumption of meat needs to be limited more than the present level.

Areas where things are getting worse rather than better include the use of public funds and subsidies for preserving the use of fossil fuels. Because of wars and supply shocks affecting energy markets, countries have actually ramped up fossil fuel subsidies to combat rising prices.

One area where the world is moving at the pace required to meet climate goals is in the sales of electric vehicles. EVs accounted for 10% of car sales globally last year and if trends continue, they are predicted to account for more than 75% of cars sold by 2030.

The faster-than-predicted progress on electric cars demonstrates that transformative change is possible and could happen in other areas.

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Web Links

World Making Too Little Progress on Climate — Except on EV Sales, Report Finds

Photo, posted May 24, 2022, courtesy of Ivan Radic via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio

‘Noah’s Ark’ Takes On Water

June 23, 2017 By EarthWise

The Svalbard Global Seed Vault, built into a hillside in the Norwegian archipelago of Svalbard far above the Arctic Circle, is often described as humanity’s last hope against extinction after some global crisis. While there are more than 1,700 gene banks around the world that keep collections of seeds, all of them are vulnerable to war, natural disasters, equipment malfunctions, and other problems. Except the Svalbard vault – or so we thought. It has been dubbed the “Noah’s Ark” of seeds and a last chance for the world to regenerate if the worst should come to pass. It’s mission is to keep the world’s seeds safe.