“From the perspective of environmental protection, biodiversity loss is as big a problem as climate change,” says Pfister, explaining the motivation behind the study. In it, the researchers analysed global data on production, trade and land use over several decades, combining several models to gauge the influence of oil crops on biodiversity.
The researchers began by compiling global maps of oil crop cultivation based on satellite data, agricultural statistics and global data sets on cultivated land.
They also calculated the extent to which different forms of land use threaten animal and plant species. To do so, they used species loss factors, which indicate how much cultivated areas contribute to global species loss – depending on the region and agricultural intensity.
Three crops are mainly responsible for species extinction
The researchers also sought to highlight the impact of oil crop cultivation across the global supply chain, explains Pfister. To this end, Pfister and his team linked the already collected data with a global economic model depicting international supply chains – from cultivation via processing to the final product. This illustrates, for example, how soybean from Brazil is fed to animals in China or Europe, thereby ultimately enabling high meat consumption.
Finally, the team analysed how the factors of consumer behaviour, population growth and agricultural efficiency are contributing to the increase in biodiversity loss.
The study examined 19 oil crops. “Three of which caused a particularly large share of the impacts: oil palm, soybean and coconut,” says Shuntian Wang, a doctoral student on Pfister’s team. Together, they account for some 75 percent of the biodiversity loss caused by oil crops.
Consumption as the driver of biodiversity loss
At the same time, the study highlights a clear development: between 1995 and 2020, biodiversity loss rose by around 80 percent. But this is not primarily caused by global population growth.