The Global Land Squeeze: Managing the Growing Competition for Land

Abstract

The world faces a global land squeeze as the world population grows to 10 billion by 2050. Human demands for food, wood products, and urban uses will expand as the population grows and incomes rise. These demands will lead to more conversion of native habitats to agricultural and urban uses; in addition, more natural forests will be converted to wood plantations and increasing amounts of wood will be harvested from relatively natural forests. This growing demand for land based products will compete with the ability of the remaining native habitats to store carbon and support biodiversity