@article {Ewers2009Do,
	title = {Do increases in agricultural yield spare land for nature?},
	journal = {Global Change Biology},
	volume = {15},
	number = {7},
	year = {2009},
	month = {July},
	pages = {1716{\textendash}1726},
	publisher = {Blackwell Publishing},
	address = {Institute of Zoology, Zoological Society of London, Regent{\textquoteright}s Park, London NW1 4RY, UK; Conservation Science Group, Department of Zoology, University of Cambridge, Downing St, Cambridge CB2 3EJ, UK; Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute, Apartado 0843-03},
	abstract = {Feeding a rapidly expanding human population will require a large increase in the supply of agricultural products during the coming decades. This may lead to the transformation of many landscapes from natural vegetation cover to agricultural land use, unless increases in crop yields reduce the need for new farmland. Here, we assess the evidence that past increases in agricultural yield have spared land for wild nature. We investigated the relationship between the change in the combined energy yield of the 23 most energetically important food crops over the period 197920131999 and the change in per capita cropland area for 124 countries over the same period. Per capita area of the 23 staple crops tended to decrease in developing countries where large yield increases occurred. However, this was counteracted by a tendency for the area used to grow crops other than staples to increase in the countries where staple crop yields increased. There remained a weak tendency in developing countries for the per capita area of all cropland to decline as staple crop yield increased, a pattern that was most evident in developing countries with the highest per capita food supplies. In developed countries, there was no evidence that higher staple crop yields were associated with decreases in per capita cropland area. This may be because high agricultural subsidies in developed countries override any land-sparing pattern that might otherwise occur. Declines in the area of natural forest were smaller in countries where the yield of staple crops increased most, when the negative effects of human population increases on forest area were controlled for. Our results show that land-sparing is a weak process that occurs under a limited set of circumstances, but that it can have positive outcomes for the conservation of wild nature.},
	keywords = {agriculture, biodiversity, conservation, wilderness},
	issn = {1365-2486},
	doi = {10.1111/j.1365-2486.2009.01849.x},
	url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1365-2486.2009.01849.x},
	author = {Ewers, Robert M. and Scharlemann, J{\"o}rn P. W. and Balmford, Andrew and Green, Rhys E.}
}
@article {Stickler2009Potential,
	title = {The potential ecological costs and cobenefits of REDD: a critical review and case study from the Amazon region},
	journal = {Global Change Biology},
	volume = {15},
	number = {12},
	year = {2009},
	month = {December},
	pages = {2803{\textendash}2824},
	address = {The Woods Hole Research Center, 149 Woods Hole Road, Falmouth, MA 02540, USA; Instituto de Pesquisa Ambiental da Amaznia, SHIN CA-5, Lote J2, Bloco J2, Brasilia-DF, CEP: 71503-505, Brazil; School of Natural Resources and Environment, Department of Geograp},
	abstract = {The United Nations climate treaty may soon include a mechanism for compensating tropical nations that succeed in reducing carbon emissions from deforestation and forest degradation, source of nearly one fifth of global carbon emissions. We review the potential for this mechanism [reducing emissions from deforestation and degradation (REDD)] to provoke ecological damages and promote ecological cobenefits. Nations could potentially participate in REDD by slowing clear-cutting of mature tropical forest, slowing or decreasing the impact of selective logging, promoting forest regeneration and restoration, and expanding tree plantations. REDD could also foster efforts to reduce the incidence of forest fire. Potential ecological costs include the accelerated loss (through displaced agricultural expansion) of low-biomass, high-conservation-value ecosystems, and substitution of low-biomass vegetation by monoculture tree plantations. These costs could be avoided through measures that protect low-biomass native ecosystems. Substantial ecological cobenefits should be conferred under most circumstances, and include the maintenance or restoration of (1) watershed functions, (2) local and regional climate regimes, (3) soils and biogeochemical processes, (4) water quality and aquatic habitat, and (5) terrestrial habitat. Some tools already being developed to monitor, report and verify (MRV) carbon emissions performance can also be used to measure other elements of ecosystem function, making development of MRV systems for ecological cobenefits a concrete possibility. Analysis of possible REDD program interventions in a large-scale Amazon landscape indicates that even modest flows of forest carbon funding can provide substantial cobenefits for aquatic ecosystems, but that the functional integrity of the landscape{\textquoteright}s myriad small watersheds would be best protected under a more even spatial distribution of forests. Because of its focus on an ecosystem service with global benefits, REDD could access a large pool of global stakeholders willing to pay to maintain carbon in forests, thereby providing a potential cascade of ecosystem services to local stakeholders who would otherwise be unable to afford them.},
	keywords = {amazon, biodiversity, co2, conservation, neotropics, redd, tropics},
	issn = {13541013},
	doi = {10.1111/j.1365-2486.2009.02109.x},
	url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1365-2486.2009.02109.x},
	author = {Stickler, Claudia M. and Nepstad, Daniel C. and Coe, Michael T. and McGRATH, David G. and Rodrigues, Hermann O. and Walker, Wayne S. and Soares-Filho, Britaldo S. and Davidson, Eric A.}
}
