NATURE -- Fuel, food and fertilizer shortage will hit biodiversity and climate
DOWNLOADApril 21, 2022 - Jianguo Liu, Andrew Balmford & Kamaljit S. Bawa
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DOI: 10.1038/d41586-022-01061-y
Correspondence
As well as the humanitarian catastrophe it is inflicting, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February is disrupting global flows of vital commodities such as fuel, food and fertilizer. This will affect biodiversity and the environment far beyond the war zones, with implications for sustainability and well-being worldwide.
Shortages and soaring prices of wheat, barley and maize have prompted European Union countries to consider growing crops on land currently left uncultivated (see go.nature.com/3llwvnx). Brazil aims to extract fertilizers such as potassium salts in biodiverse Indigenous lands in the Amazon (see go.nature.com/3j7riv3). Skyrocketing prices for oil and gas have triggered calls for increased fossil-fuel extraction, undermining commitments made at last year’s COP26 climate summit. These moves would further harm biodiversity and undo long-standing conservation and climate-mitigation efforts.
The parties to the United Nations Convention on Biodiversity should expand the post-2020 biodiversity framework at this year’s conference in Kunming, China, to hold aggressors accountable for the impact of war on biodiversity and the environment globally, and for the cost of restoration.
