Half of the Earth’s land surface not covered with ice remains relatively wild – but many of these “low human-impact” areas are broken into small, isolated pieces, threatening their future.
Half of the Earth’s land surface not covered with ice remains relatively wild – but many of these “low human-impact” areas are broken into small, isolated pieces, threatening their future.
Those are among the findings of a massive inventory undertaken in 2017 and 2018 by the National Geographic Society and released in early October. The study concludes that despite widespread environmental damage inflicted by human development (e.g. cities and farms), there’s still an opportunity to protect vast, relatively wild regions of the Earth for the benefit of people and other living species.
“It’s not too late to aim high,” said lead author Andrew Jacobson, a geographic information systems professor at Catawba College in North Carolina. Jacobson led a team of researchers using satellite-based mapping techniques to measure human impacts across the globe and to identify areas of lowest human pressure and highest potential for saving intact habitat.
Most of the low impact areas identified by the survey were in the remote boreal forests of northern Canada and Russia, in the highlands of Central Asia, especially Tibet and Mongolia, in the deserts of North Africa and Australia, and in the tropical rain forests of the Amazon Basin of South America.
Read more at: University of California - Davis
A new survey shows about half the Earth's ice-free land surface remains largely wild, mostly deserts and forests. But much of this wild habitat is broken into small fragments. (Photo Credit: Andrew Jacobson, Catawba College)
