Global Terrestrial Biodiversity Hotspots Are in "Land Use Debt", New Study Finds

Global terrestrial biodiversity hotspots are among the most ecologically important regions on Earth. Although they occupy only 2.5% of the planet’s land surface, these 36 regions support nearly half of all plant species and more than one-third of terrestrial vertebrates.

However, this ecological importance contrasts sharply with their current condition. Most hotspots have lost more than 85% of their original vegetation, and human land use pressures continue to intensify within these hotspots. “Under accelerating global land-use change, achieving zero net land degradation in these regions has thus become increasingly challenging.

Against this background, a research team led by Prof. CHEN Yaning from the Xinjiang Institute of Ecology and Geography (XIEG) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, assessed land-use change in global terrestrial biodiversity hotspots within the framework of the United Nations’ Land Degradation Neutrality (LDN) policy, adopted in 2015.

To quantify both historical land-use legacies and recent policy impacts, the researchers developed a Land Use Balance Approach (LUBA). This method measured net land-use change across these hotspots from 1992 to 2022, using 2000-2015 as the pre-LDN baseline and 2016-2022 as the monitoring period.

The analysis shows that land-use change has affected approximately 9.4% of global biodiversity hotspots since 1992. Although restoration and revegetation efforts increased after 2015, they were insufficient to offset ongoing degradation, resulting in a global land-use debt of 29.1 million hectares, equivalent to about 0.9% of hotspot area, indicating that degradation continues to outweigh restoration at the global scale

Hotspots in Asia and the Americas accounted for most of the global land-use debt due to continued deforestation and agricultural expansion, while Africa showed a modest land-use credit. Importantly, researchers identified a “vegetation greenness paradox,” in which structural greening after LDN adoption masks declines in key ecosystem functions, including carbon storage and habitat quality, in these high land-use-debt hotspots.

“Effective land restoration must go beyond land surface greening,” said Prof. CHEN Yaning. “Reversing land-use debt will require locally tailored policies that emphasize functional recovery alongside visible greening, ensuring that LDN efforts deliver effective ecological integrity in biodiversity hotspots”

Read the full article: https://doi.org/10.1029/2025EF006799

Contact

LONG Huaping

Xinjiang Institute of Ecology and Geography

E-mail: longhp@ms.xjb.ac.cn

Web: http://english.egi.cas.cn