An altered planetary anatomy

(Swedish summary below)

Farming, forestry and fisheries are changing the anatomy of the biosphere. This makes us all more vulnerable to new types of global risks that will affect the long-term ability to provide food, fibres and fuel to a growing and wealthier human population.

This is the gist of a new study published in Nature as part of the journal’s 150th anniversary collection, featuring a selection of articles that “reflect the past, present and future of Nature”.

The article is written by a team of centre researchers, with Magnus Nyström as lead author, together with Jean-Baptiste Jouffray, Albert Norström, Beatrice Crona, Peter Søgaard Jørgensen, Örjan Bodin, Victor Galaz and Carl Folke, as well as Professor Steve Carpenter from the University of Wisconsin–Madison, USA.

The study notes that more than 75 per cent of the world’s land area has already been converted into domains like cities, farmland and timber-producing forests. In the oceans, around 90 per cent of fish-stocks are either overexploited or fully exploited while a rapidly growing aquaculture sector is taking up more coastal and offshore space than ever.

A “simplified” global production ecosystem

Historically, humans have converted forests, lakes and other natural ecosystems into simplified production systems like croplands, forest plantations and fish farms. This has been carried out with a focus on efficiency and the massive use of inputs such as fossil fuels, fertilizers, pesticides, antibiotics and technology. In parallel, people, places, cultures and economies have become increasingly intertwined across the world, making production ecosystems globally interconnected through international trade and the global market.

Taken together, these changes are gradually converting the biosphere into a “simplified” global production ecosystem that focuses on a small number of harvestable species. For example, pigs and chickens account for 40% and 34%, respectively, of all the meat production in the world, whereas more than 80% of the global fish and shellfish aquaculture production is sourced from 30 “staple” species. Even seemingly unaffected parts of the biosphere are under human influence.

“Subsistence fishing and farming or diversified agricultural landscapes, may be subject to little human input or export-mediated connectivity from international trade. Nevertheless, they are increasingly shaped by a broader set of global drivers, such as policies, technologies and economic changes”, the authors note.

Increasing vulnerability and interconnected risks

The new global anatomy described above is already changing the global risk pattern. Shocks that were previously occurring locally within one sector are becoming “globally contagious” and more prevalent as sectors are intensified and more intertwined.

For example, droughts or crop pest outbreaks can spill over to seafood production, since fish farms increasingly depend on agricultural crops to produce their feeds.

“The hyperconnectivity and homogeneity of the global production ecosystem […] creates novel conditions for risks to emerge and interact, rendering our ability to produce harvestable biomass more vulnerable to disturbance,” the authors write.

This means that the capacity of the global production ecosystem to satisfy human demand for food, fibre and fuel will be determined by the consequences of these emergent risks.

Three avenues forward

The fragile anatomy of the global system for production of biomass is one of the grand challenges facing humanity, the authors conclude. To change course, the researchers suggest three overarching strategies:

1. Redirecting finance for sustainability, exemplified by actions like divestment from unsustainable palm oil production, the insurance sector refusing to insure fishing vessels involved in illegal fishing, and banks denying loans to clients that do not comply with sustainability standards.
2. Radical transparency and traceability, governmental policies that ensure that social and environmental criteria are met along whole supply chains. It also requires education and information to consumers in the form of certification, labelling and public campaigns.
3. Keystone actors as agents of change, the handful of large transnational corporations that currently dominate agriculture, forestry and fisheries. In this context, the study also calls for improved science–business partnerships to complement public policies and governmental regulations. One example is the Seafood Business for Ocean Stewardship (SeaBOS) initiative, in which centre researchers directly engage with ten of the world’s largest seafood companies to influence their 600 subsidiaries with operations in at least 90 different countries.

But the researchers warn that the three strategies will never be successful without profound shifts in worldviews and belief systems.

“Ultimately, moving towards a more sustainable global production ecosystem is likely to require radical shifts in deeply held values, educational systems, and social behaviour that underpin current economic paradigms, consumption patterns and power relationships,” they write.

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