Demand for food, wood, and biofuels will likely contribute to massive deforestation in developing countries around the world by 2030, according to a new report. The Rights and Resources Initiative estimates that if current agricultural land productivity doesn’t increase substantially, by 2030 about 1.2 billion additional acres of land will be needed to meet the world’s agricultural, biofuel, and wood-products demand. What’s more, only about half the land needed by then would be available without using tropical forestland. One solution stressed by the report authors is helping traditional tropical-forest inhabitants acquire formal legal rights to their land, which could potentially prevent huge land grabs by powerful industries and preserve the forests while respecting locals’ rights. “It is clear that the dual crises of fuel and food are attracting significant new investments and great land speculation,” said RRI’s Andy White. “Only by protecting the rights of the people who live in and around the world’s most vulnerable forests can we prevent the devastation these forces will wreak on the poor.”
