Royal society, 2023
Globally, there are increasing demands on land to feed and house a growing and increasingly wealthy population, sequester carbon to mitigate climate change, restore biodiversity, and improve resilience in the face of extreme weather and global shocks such as pandemics and war. Successfully navigating these intersecting challenges will require science and innovation to increase the sustainable productivity of land for the multiple outputs society wants and needs — including those that have market value, such as agricultural produce, and those with no or partial market value, such as biodiversity.
Now is a critical moment for land use policy globally, but especially in the UK. A confluence of environmental and geopolitical drivers necessitates a strategic rethink of the way decisions are made about how landscapes and the services they provide are managed — not least the need to design replacements for EU agriculture, environment, and trade policies by which the UK has been bound for decades.
Science and innovation have several important roles in helping manage landscapes better. Land is a finite resource, and we need to research new ways to use it more efficiently, as well as to apply existing knowledge more effectively. The demands we place on the land are many, complex, and interacting, and policymakers need the best scientific evidence and analytical tools to help them navigate the difficult decisions they face.
The following recommendations are aimed at both increasing and enhancing access to science and innovation relevant to land use, and supporting decision-making processes to help meet the challenges of the 21st century.