High carbon and biodiversity costs from converting Africa's wet savannahs to cropland

Timothy D. Searchinger, Lyndon Estes, Philip K. Thornton, Tim Beringer, An Notenbaert, Daniel Ian Rubenstein, Ralph Heimlich, Rachel Licker, Mario Herrero

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

97 Scopus citations

Abstract

Do the wet savannahs and shrublands of Africa provide a large reserve of potential croplands to produce food staples or bioenergy with low carbon and biodiversity costs? We find that only small percentages of these lands have meaningful potential to be low-carbon sources of maize (1/42%) or soybeans (9.5-11.5%), meaning that their conversion would release at least one-third less carbon per ton of crop than released on average for the production of those crops on existing croplands. Factoring in land-use change, less than 1% is likely to produce cellulosic ethanol that would meet European standards for greenhouse gas reductions. Biodiversity effects of converting these lands are also likely to be significant as bird and mammal richness is comparable to that of the world's tropical forest regions. Our findings contrast with influential studies that assume these lands provide a large, low-environmental-cost cropland reserve.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Pages (from-to)481-486
Number of pages6
JournalNature Climate Change
Volume5
Issue number5
DOIs
StatePublished - May 28 2015

All Science Journal Classification (ASJC) codes

  • Environmental Science (miscellaneous)
  • Social Sciences (miscellaneous)

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