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Moving into the first decades of the new millennium, the World
is expected to experience a continued surge in the demand
for meat and milk, particularly in the developing countries
– a phenomenon dubbed the Livestock Revolution. Given
the production systems dominating today and those expected
to dominate in the near future, the foreseen expansion of
livestock production and consumption will be one of the greatest
influences on the natural resources of the World, especially
in the developing countries, where the increase in production
and consumption of meat and milk will by far be the greatest.
Globally, pasture areas are estimated to be increasing by
0.3% per year. At the same time as coming under increased
pressure from expanding livestock production, the natural
resources are already, and will continue to be, under direct
pressure from the growing population in particularly Asia
and Sub-Saharan Africa, where projected milk and meat production
is also foreseen to increase most rapidly. The accelerated
livestock production will demand a similar increase in production
of feed and fodder, again putting additional pressure on the
land resource.
Already, land-based systems provide a large share of the
total livestock output, namely 89% of beef and veal. About
one-quarter of the world's total land area is used for grazing
livestock. In addition, about one fifth of the world's arable
land is used for growing cereals for livestock feed. Livestock
production is the world's largest land user and may soon be
its most important agricultural activity in terms of economic
output.
One of the largest and most important challenges associated
with the livestock revolution will thus be to allow for increased
livestock production without compromising the natural resources
necessary for that production. Careful policy design, including
introduction of direct payments for environmental services,
is the primary tool for securing that this dual purpose is
met. The practical organisation and implementation of such
payment schemes is still in its infancy on a global level,
but previous experience with positive incentives and compensation
schemes, as well as the existing initial experience with payments
for environmental services, has already generated valuable
momentum.
In global terms, South America and Asia have the most cattle.
Latin American countries are among the most advanced with
regard to promoting more environmentally friendly production
systems in terms of positive and negative incentives, and
particularly when it comes to direct payments for environmental
services. Costa Rica especially is the poster child for the
successful implementation of such schemes, which are primarily
focused on reforestation and maintenance of forest cover for
the purpose of carbon sequestration and biodiversity conservation.
Examples from watershed services and landscape beauty are
fairly frequent as well. It is therefore relevant to investigate
whether the experience gained on this continent can be useful
in the possible introduction of similar schemes in Southeast
and East Asia.
This does not imply however, that experience does not already
exist in Asia. Examples from watershed, scenic beauty, biodiversity
and carbon sequestration services do exist from a variety
of Asian countries, although the majority of cases are project
or site-specific and relatively scattered still. In all continents
the experience with payments for environmental services is
bound to forest ecosystems, including agro-forestry systems.
The latter is typically the closest anyone has come to paying
for environmental services rendered by silvo-pastoral systems,
meaning this is a relatively new venture globally.
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