Land use change, rewilding, grazing and rainforests
If not grazing, then what?
Marginal land - What about land that can only have animals and cannot grow crops
- We don't need animals to feed everyone or even a sig human population. See Feed-food competition, and Animal agriculture takes up lots of land but provide few calories
- This basically only applies to ruminants. Chickens, pig and of course fish cannot be grazed
- If we only farmed animals on land that could not grow crops we wouldn't come remotely close to meeting human's meat requirements, so meat would be like triple or quadruple the cost
- Also, marginal land can barely support any animals anyway. The land is harsh and cannot support high amounts of plant life that could sustain a large number of animals. If the land was fertile enough to sustain good grasses and plant life, then we could grow crops there.
- Much grazing land cannot be used for crops as it's too wet. But we can actually rewild it with Celtic rainforest
UK
Stealing liberally from here
"The UK and Ireland have some of the lowest forest cover in Europe at 13% and 11% respectively, and only one-tenth of this is natural rather than planted. Eating less meat and more plants means your diet has a smaller land footprint, which means more space for woods and rainforests to return."
"Yes, grasslands in the British Isles with low levels of grazing can be important ecosystems for wildflowers and insects, but this is not what most grazing land is like. Grassland nature reserves managed for nature and not farming, such as Martin Down in Hampshire, have trees and shrubs – in the spring and summer the air is filled with birdsong and the ground with butterflies and orchids. They are a far cry from the intensively grazed fields and hillsides which resemble billiard tables and make up too much of the UK and Ireland’s grasslands."
See also
When you put up a fence so deer and cattle cant get in, forest quickly recover:
Case studies here: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/dec/17/graze-anatomy-fencing-fewer-sheep-richer-wildlife--aoe
In 1990, 9ha of land in Ben Lawers in Scotland was fenced off.
