A newly published paper in Nature Sustainability by Livia Cabernard, Stephan Pfister, and Stefanie Hellweg highlights the hidden biodiversity costs of increasing global agri-food imports. The study, titled "Biodiversity impacts of recent land-use change driven by increases in agri-food imports", explores the period from 1995 to 2022 and reveals that almost 80% of global biodiversity loss due to land-use changes is linked to agri-food exports from regions such as Latin America, Africa, and Southeast Asia.

While countries such as China, the U.S., and those in Europe have reduced domestic biodiversity impacts through restoration, they are simultaneously shifting the environmental burden to tropical biodiversity hotspots. This outsourcing has resulted in a 1.4 % global potential species loss—50 times beyond the planetary boundary—emphasizing the need for policies that protect biodiversity in these vulnerable regions and promote sustainable agri-food sourcing.

Read the paper and all interesting findings here: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41893-024-01433-4