How the increasing struggle for land is endangering global and environmental stability, and what may be done to lessen the threats.
One of the key environmental issues of the modern era is pressures related to land usage. Over the next several decades, there will likely be more competition for productive and environmentally valuable land, as well as for the resources and services it offers. This is because there will be a greater need for land for farming, mitigating climate change, and other critical uses, which will lead to a worsening “land crunch.”
This paper looks at the causes of this new problem as well as possible remedies. It investigates the nature of “land wealth,” acknowledging that vital resources are dispersed unevenly among countries on a global scale. If policies that recognize national limitations without sacrificing the goal to minimize global resource usage are not implemented, inequality and tensions between land users and uses will only grow. Thus, solving the land shortage requires international cooperation and is inherently a global and political issue.
In the end, radical adjustments to land usage and governance will be necessary to create a sustainable, “land-wealthy world.” Reducing human impact on the land, regulating the world’s land resources in a cooperative and systemic manner, and altering the way land is valued and financed for stewardship are all necessary to achieve this. The most important thing that governments need to do is probably prioritize land and implement institutional reforms that place land crunch planning at the forefront of economic, foreign, and domestic policy.
