Land-Use Issues

Important land use processes are agricultural development and intensification, settlement, and extraction of natural resources. In response to human land use, the earth's land cover has changed from a mosaic of native ecosystems, to an increasingly impacted mixture of degraded and fragmented habitats. In the last three centuries, primary forests have declined 20%, natural grasslands and savannas have declined nearly 40%, whereas croplands have increased 390%, and pastures 460%. Almost 39% of earth's land surface is transformed into agricultural land and settlements, and an additional 37% of global land without such use has become embedded within these anthromes.