A new report published by UNEP argues that the world needs to focus on maintaining and boosting the underlying ecological foundations that support food production to help ensure food security for a growing population. 

Two studies, one in Nature and the other in Science present evidence to demonstrate the importance of biodiversity in maintaining long term ecosystem productivity and sustainability.

A paper in Science reports on a study which finds a correlation betweeen species diversity and multifunctionality – ie the number of ecosystem services it performs.  The study focuses on drylands on all continents except Antarctica. It concludes that plant biodiversity is crucial to buffering the negative effects of climate change and desertification in drylands.

In September, Wilton Park hosted a conference on ‘Global Land Use: Policies for the future’. The conference was the second in a series on ‘Agriculture, food and land use: the international policy challenges’.

L. Reijnders (2009): Are forestation, bio-char and landfilled biomass adequate offsets for the climate effects of burning fossil fuels?, Energy Policy Volume 37, Issue 8, Pages 2839-2841. Forestation and landfilling purpose-grown biomass are not adequate offsets for the CO2 emission from burning fossil fuels. Their permanence is insufficiently guaranteed and landfilling purpose-grown biomass may even be counterproductive.