@MrLee

When talking about land-use, it is, however, important to understand that land is not something that is used and then thrown away (ok, there are some heavily destructive uses, e.g. mining).

Land provides multiple services (biodiversity, carbon storage, water cycling, recreation, agricultural production, space for building stuff...). Some land-uses reduce the capacity of land to provide these services.
The next issue is the order in which the services are priorized. Some services have a more or less evident price tag (agricultural production, or space for buildings), while other (ecosystem) services, like water purification, carbon storage or biodiversity, are usually not taken into account by the market, except by really motivated people(TM) or administrations treating these services as public goods that deserve protection.

So, to make a fair comparison, it is important to assess the capacity of the different land-uses to provide the land-related services. And here it gets somewhat messy because management comes into play. E.g. 'agriculture' can be an conventional, pesticide-based soil degrading extractive system with all the consequences for soil, water and biodiversity; however, you can also have an agroforestry system that provides its functions in the interest of society and nature.

And here comes into play that e.g. pastures, despite taking up a lot of land, can be quite well-managed and score high on ecosystem services (of course, capitalism promotes the opposite: land degradation an unnecessary suffering*).
Just wanted to provide this context to the great map.

* of ccourse, reducing meat intake is a goal the whole society should work towards.

#LandUse #EcosystemServices #Biodiversity #Pastures #Agroforestry #LandManagement

Finished!

This is now my desktop and browser backgrounds.

I used several brushes/image assets of my own making and a few brushes downloaded from the ClipStudio Asset store.

#peaceful #desktopbackground #wallpaper #desktopwallpaper #cows #cattle #cow #sheep #ram #ewe #lamb #cowdesktop #cattledesktop #pastorallandscape #pastoralscene #moo #baa #farms #farm #farmanimals #barnyard #barns #barn #pasture #pastures #daisies #dawn #morning #earlymorning #lensflare #silo #silos #animalart

Sheep enclosures in Yorkshire, UK
#Deforestation alters the Amazon’s #climate (precipitation & CO2 removal) with far-reaching consequences for the global climate system. From 1985-2020 there was a significant drop in #forest cover from 89% to 79%, while #pastures increased from 4% to 15%: doi.org/10.1038/s414... #landuse #cattle

How climate change and defores...
The breathtaking mountains and vibrant pastures.

#mountains #pastures
A #Food Reckoning Is Coming
Our #diets are awful for planet. We can’t simply abandon food.
Challenge is: what we #eat, how we produce it, and forests and ecosystems we clear to make room for more #farms to make more food. And that’s mostly a land story about relentless spread of #crops and #pastures that cover 2 of every 5 acres of land on Earth, obliterating wild landscapes that soak up carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. We have no idea how or when that story will end.
https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2025/06/climate-food-land-problem/683005/
Humanity Can Quit Fossil Fuels—But Not Food

Our diets are awful for the planet. But we can’t simply abandon food.

The Atlantic
#Armenia has 2.1 million hectares of #agriculturalLand, 72% of the country's land area. Most of this, however, is mountain #pastures, and #cultivableLand is 480,000 hectares (452,900 hectares #arableLand, 27,300 hectares in #orchards and #vineyards), or 16% of the country's area. In 2006, 46% of the work force was employed in agriculture (up from 26% in 1991), and agriculture contributed 21% of the country's GDP. In 1991 Armenia imported about 65 percent of its food.
#Alignment has a #Cost
Sometimes, it is called a #SwitchingCost to #Pastures that promise #Heart and #Mind working together not against each other.
#Alignment with Narghiza Ergashova
#KnowledgeDrain when #TalentFlees to greener #Pastures
#Talent is #Capital with Narghiza Ergashova
Pastoral by Mike Smale

Pastoral by Mike Smale

Mike Smale