Making the ‘land-sparing’ dream a reality in West Africa

For decades, a debate has raged among some of the world’s leading conservation thinkers concerning a deceptively simple question: should we be making our farmlands less intensive, or more?

The debate centers around two very different visions for how lands should best be used in order to meet the needs of society. On one side, proponents of ‘land-sharing’ argue that agricultural lands should be managed to be more biodiversity-rich - for example by using fewer chemicals and incorporating wildlife- and carbon-rich habitats into farmed areas. On the other side, ‘land-sparing’ proponents argue that farmlands should be managed to produce the highest (sustainable) yields possible, even if this comes at a cost for on-farm biodiversity.

The latter may seem counterintuitive from a conservation perspective, but the logic hinges on recognizing that land itself is a finite resource. Recent projections suggest that global food production must increase by up to 56% to meet the levels of demand expected in 2050. Proponents of land-sparing argue that intensifying the land in our existing agricultural footprint is the only way to protect remaining natural habitats and to create the space for restoration.

This debate is thus highly relevant to reforestation, as this activity often competes directly with other land-uses – especially agriculture - for space to operate. Reforestation projects must carefully consider how they will impact food supplies, both locally and globally, and ideally take action to ensure that they don’t negatively impact food security. This means tackling the sparing-sharing question head-on: is it better to adopt a land-sparing approach by intensifying agriculture on farmland alongside areas of ecosystem restoration, or to integrate nature-friendly farming as another part of the restoration landscape?

Research groups have spent many decades trying to identify the costs and benefits of the two strategies, usually by comparing values like carbon and biodiversity across like-for-like landscapes that produce equivalent quantities of food. In our own academic research, we have contributed a number of studies to the debate and gained first-hand experience of the complex trade-offs at play. There are many dimensions to consider– carbon storage, biodiversity, water security, soil health, and also recreational/cultural values - all of which can be promoted or impacted by each strategy.

In tropical Latin America, our research showed that land-sparing landscapes consistently outperformed land-sharing equivalents for both carbon sequestration and biodiversity, for the production of equivalent amounts of food. We found that this was true for whether the ‘spared’ component involved existing stands of forest, or former farmlands that were allowed to regenerate back to natural forest. Interestingly, the biodiversity benefits extended beyond just increasing the diversity of species in the landscape – we found that land sparing landscapes also support a much greater depth of evolutionary history in their bird communities, as well as a more diverse range of species that provide key functional roles (e.g. seed dispersal and pollination). By contrast, land-sharing landscapes favored smaller suites of more closely-related species, providing a narrower range of functional roles.

The outcomes of most other studies addressing this question have also favored land-sparing over land-sharing, despite the trade-offs of the former for wildlife within the farmed portion of a landscape.  A broad scientific consensus has thus emerged in support of land-sparing as the best approach to balance the needs of food production against other values.

If land-sparing is the way forward, why are we still seeing rampant tropical deforestation to make for new agriculture? The answer is that while the model works well in theory, it is challenging to implement in practice. To fulfil its promise, land sparing must genuinely protect high-quality natural habitats alongside higher-yielding farmland - otherwise it risks perpetuating a lose-lose scenario. Protecting natural habitat patches is arguably easier from an operational side under land sharing, where farmers can actively manage and maintain small patches of natural habitat themselves. Natural habitats are more segregated from farmland under the land-sparing model, which makes their long-term protection more of a challenge.

At Rainforest Builder, we recognized that the carbon market offers an ideal solution to this challenge. By introducing a benefit stream that directly stems from the spared land, carbon-based reforestation projects create strong incentives for people to fully protect their ‘spared’ lands over the long term. Not only that, but a portion of our carbon revenues are used to support improvements in agricultural productivity within the remaining farmlands in the wider landscape, ensuring that more land can be spared for forest without a net loss in food production.

In Sierra Leone, it has been thrilling to see this story become a reality. In the Fakunya and Wonde Chiefdoms in central and eastern Sierra Leone, we have worked closely with local communities to understand the land-use challenges they face. In this region, there are stark contrasts in agricultural productivity between low-lying areas with high soil fertility and higher grounds with drier, less-fertile soils. Traditionally, farmers have struggled to achieve good yields on the higher grounds, often abandoning them from farming entirely, leaving the land to become choked by invasive grasses and weeds that are frequently burned by uncontrollable fires. Despite once having been covered by rainforest, these uplands are trapped in a cycle of land degradation and fire, whilst providing scant returns to local farmers, who increasingly depend on the fertile low-lying areas for their food security and livelihoods.

Recognizing that this landscape is an ideal environment for the land-sparing approach, Rainforest Builder’s projects have been co-designed with local communities to target reforesting the least-productive upland portions, leaving the more productive areas for continued farming. Working with each land-owning family in turn, this model has enabled us to create a network of restoration blocks, each occupying less than 30% of any family’s total land area, but summing to thousands of hectares that will be restored back to rainforest.

To complete the land-sparing vision, we are establishing agricultural improvement hubs within these local communities. These provide support and training for farmers to boost the productivity of their remaining farms – particularly those on fertile soils in the low-lying parts of the land. Using a peer-to-peer training approach that has proven to be an effective conduit for change, these hubs are set to become centers of agricultural innovation benefiting farmers both within and beyond our project areas.

Anyone serious about reforestation knows that growing trees is just a tiny part of what is needed to achieve success. Projects must carefully consider their potential impacts on local economies – and agricultural production is invariably central to this. Being yield-neutral or even yield positive is not only important from a food-security perspective, but is also key for avoiding the spill-over of unmet food demand to other areas that suffer forest clearance (termed leakage). It is essential that restoration projects take their impacts on food production and any associated offsite deforestation seriously.  Given that the steepest rises in market demand for food are predicted to happen in the tropics, rainforests stand first in line to fall victim to growing encroachment pressure. The land-sparing vision adopted by Rainforest Builder, in our view, is the best strategy to ensure this doesn’t happen. It is exciting to be part of making that vision a reality in West Africa.