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The impact of livestock on biodiversity

Summary of the guidelines for assessment

Year of publication 2019

Place of publication Rome, Italy ;

Pages 2p.

Publisher FAO ;

Product type Brochure, flyer, fact-sheet

Edition 1

Synopsis (short abstract) According to the last report of the International Panel on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES), the current rate of species extinction is unprecedented in human history and is threatening human well-being as biodiversity is the basis for essential ecosystem services such as biomass production, crop pollination, water purification or climate regulation. Reversing species decline will require mainstreaming biodiversity across sectors and landscapes. Livestock is among the sectors with highest impacts on biodiversity. As a direct impact, around 30% of land on Earth are used for pastures and feed crops, which results in modifications of biodiversity habitats. In addition, livestock production has indirect impacts on biodiversity through its contribution to climate change and pollution (e.g. nutrients, ecotoxic substances). However, an important specificity of the livestock sector is that its impacts on biodiversity can also be positive. The LEAP biodiversity principles document contains ten case studies. They show concrete examples of biodiversity assessment in the context of livestock and illustrate how the principles can be applied. They cover a wide range of livestock systems, geographical areas and assessment methods.

Language English

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    Greenhouse gas emissions can be expressed as CO2 equivalence and water use in terms of litres consumed, but there is no single common unit to measure biodiversity because of its multivariate nature, context-specificity and because conservation priorities are subject to a societal value judgment. The intrinsic complexity of biodiversity may explain why it has been left out of many environmental assessments of the livestock sector. Yet, the impact of livestock on biodiversity needs to be measured to support policy development and sustainable management decisions. The Livestock Environmental Assessment and Performance (LEAP) Partnership has tackled the challenge and published the guidelines on biodiversity with the objective to provide step-by-step recommendations for the quantitative assessment of the effects of livestock production on wild biodiversity, based on existing indicators and methods. The guidelines are relevant to a range of assessment objectives, users, scales, geographical regions, livestock species, and production systems.
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