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Hidden Impacts How Europe's Resource Overconsumption Promotes Global Land Conflicts 2

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Hidden Impacts How Europe's Resource Overconsumption Promotes Global Land Conflicts 2 H IDDEN IMPACTS How Europe's resource overconsumption promotes global land conflicts 2.TH LANDIS REPORT USE AND MATERIAL EXTRACTION WAS FINANCIAllY SUPPORTED BY European Union Altstoff Recycling Austria SUPPORTED BY Federal Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry, Environment and Water Management, Austria Austrian Development Agency City of Vienna CREDITS: MEDIA OWNER, PROPRIETOR AND PUBLISHER: GLOBAL 2000 Verlagsges.m.b.H., Neustiftgasse 36, 1070 Vienna. – CONTENT: Umweltschutzorganisation GLOBAL 2000, ZVR: 593514598, Neustiftgasse 36, 1070 Vienna and Sustainable Europe Research Institute (SERI), ZVR: 215027957, Garnisongasse7/17, 1090 Vienna – TEXT: Stephan Lutter, Leisa Burrell, Stefan Giljum, Thomas Patz, Lisa Kernegger, Ariadna Rodrigo – CASE STUDIES: Bruna Engel (FoE Brazil), Didrot Nguepjouo (FoE Cameroon), José Miguel Torrico (Chile) and Mensah Todzro (FoE Togo) – INFO-GRAPHICS: Gerda Palmetshofer, Aldo Martinez, Matija Rutar ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS: We thank Becky Slater from Friends of the Earth (England, Wales and Northern Ireland) for the assistance with the content of this report. Furthermore we want to thank the project partners from FoE Brazil, Cameroon, Chile and Togo for the case studies. – EDITING: Carin Unterkircher, Astrid Breit and and Stella Haller – DESIGN: Hannes Hofbauer – PHOTO-EDITING: Steve Wyckoff – PHOTOS: Friends of the Earth International/Prakash Hatvalne (p4), Friends of the Earth International/ATI – Jason Taylor (p11, p19), shutterstock (p6, p22, p25, p29, p31, p35), Paul Lauer (p24), GLOBAL 2000 (p12, p20, p32). Cover: FoEI/Prakash Hatvalne – PRINTING: Druckerei Janetschek GmbH, A-3860 Heidenreichstein, www.janetschek.at, UWNr. 637. – PRINTED WITH PLANT COLORS ON RECYCLED PAPER, 100 % RECYCLABLE. © GLOBAL 2000, SERI, Friends of the Earth Europe, February 2013 The contents of this publication are the sole responsibility of GLOBAL 2000 and SERI and can in no way be taken to reflect the views of the European Union. 2 | Hidden impacts How Europe's resource overconsumption promotes global land conflicts 2. LAND USE AND MATERIAL EXTRACTION EXECUTIVE SUMMARY This report examines the inter-linkages between In all of the products that we consume, we also in- our material use and related land requirements and, directly consume embodied land that was required through demonstrating this link, highlights the very along the production chain to produce a particular urgent need to scale down our excessive consump- product. The amount of embodied land traded around the tion of this resource in the interests of maintaining world has increased in line with growing international trade the regenerative capacity of the biosphere, as well as in agricultural products. Already in 2007, 40 % of Europe’s conserving resources for future generations. land footprint – the land used for crop production and live- stock farming which was required to satisfy the demand for This report is the third of a series which shed light on the products in Europe – was located in other regions of the relationship between different types of natural resources world, some of which are unable to provide basic food and (after “Overconsumption?”1 on material use trends and resource needs for their own people. Note that this figure “Under Pressure”2 linking material and water use). The focus does not include land for forestry or fibre production – the of this report is on Europe and its role as a major user of land used to produce wood, paper, or natural fibres like cot- global land resources. ton. Land is arguably one of the most taken-for-granted Land footprints differ considerably between different resources, largely due to its unseen role in all of countries and world regions, with the industrialised our consumer and food products. It is a fundamental countries consuming more than their fair share. There resource necessary to produce our crops, fruits and veg- are also significant differences in the land requirements for etables, the timber that is required to produce paper and different products along the production chain. For example furniture, the minerals we extract to build our houses and on a global scale, the production of meat and animal-based roads and the metal ores that form the basis of consumer products has the largest land footprint, taking into account goods, such as computers and mobile phones. Many people grains and cereals grown to feed livestock. Hence, societies are oblivious to the link between the products that they are with a high share of meat in their diets have a larger land consuming in ever greater numbers and the central role that footprint. this is playing in land use changes, ecosystem degradation and poor working conditions in other parts of the world. The increasing hunger for land to satisfy our consump- tion often becomes manifest in the direct or indirect Land is a limited resource. As demand for land grows, appropriation of foreign land, often in the form of both the pressure on this limited resource and the competi- “land grabbing”. This phenomenon, which has seen large tion between its different applications will escalate. For in- increases in recent times, occurs when local communities stance, around 38 % of the world’s land surface is currently and individuals lose access to land that they previously used, used for agriculture. A mix of pressures such as world popu- threatening their livelihoods, as it is acquired by outside in- lation growth, rapid increases in the size of the world’s mid- vestors, including national elites, domestic and international dle classes and corresponding changes in diets and energy corporations and governments. Biofuel production, which use, growing consumption of biofuels in the US, EU, Brazil has significant social and environmental consequences, has and elsewhere, alongside the current and growing over- been identified as the largest driver of land grabbing in the consumption of the industrialised nations, will undoubtedly global south in recent times. Unsustainable European con- trigger increases in demands for agricultural products. Cur- sumption levels and European trade and domestic policies rent demands are generally being met through industrialised – including biofuels targets – are playing a catalytic role in agricultural practices, thereby contributing to declining soil this phenomenon. quality, and increasing pressure on biodiversity and pollution of the natural environment more broadly. How Europe's resource overconsumption promotes global land conflicts Hidden impacts | 3 To reduce Europe’s land footprint, it is essential that It is also imperative that Europe creates domestic we drastically decrease our overall consumption, in- and trade policies that encourage alternative, more cluding changes in our consumption of items such as sustainable methods of production that respect the meat, as well as rethink policies that drive resource natural processes of land and surrounding ecosys- depletion in other parts of the world. To improve Europe’s tems, whilst simultaneously decreasing the applica- and the world’s land management, footprint analyses and tion of industrial agricultural methods that are caus- land use reduction need to be integrated into national, ing massive environmental and social harms, such as European and global policies in order to be able to set and the application of artificial fertilisers and pesticides. measure targets that catalyse the creation of markets for In particular, government interventions in agriculture, such products that have a low land footprint. Alliances between as through farming and trade policies, need to be reformed net-importers and -exporters of land should be established, accordingly. Equally important is the requirement to in- for instance in terms of a common strategy, to efficiently crease the efficiency of the end use of the harvested crops, administer and reduce the demand for land. Trade policies for instance by drastically decreasing the amount of food need to be modified to ensure socially and environmentally that is wasted. Lastly, efforts to increase general material responsible use and trade of land, thereby ensuring that efficiency, combined with measures to reduce resource de- communities that are dependent on local natural resources mand as well as reuse and recycle resources and products, can retain access to land and other natural resources in are urgently required to reduce the pressure exerted on land order to sustain their livelihoods. worldwide. 4 | Hidden impacts How Europe's resource overconsumption promotes global land conflicts TABLE OF CONTENTS 1. INTRODUCTION ................................................................................................................................................. 6 2. LAND USE AND MATERIAL EXTRACTION ..................................................................................................... 8 3. LAND USE AND INTERNATIONAL TRADE OF PRODUCTS ......................................................................... 14 4. LAND USE AND MATERIAL CONSUMPTION ................................................................................................ 22 5. LAND USE AND MATERIAL EFFICIENCY ....................................................................................................... 28 6. THE LIMITATIONS OF GLOBAL LAND RESOURCES .................................................................................... 34 ANNEX: MULTI-REGIONAL INPUT-OUTPUT MODEL: METHODOLOGY ........................................................ 36 LIST OF CASE STUDIES
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