The world’s richest ecosystems are losing over 26% of their species to farming, finds global study

Wild landscapes across the world are being converted into agricultural farms at an alarming rate to meet the rising food demand of a growing global population.

A new global study published on December 26, 2025 in the journal Communications Earth & Environment showed how devastating this shift has been for wildlife, especially in some of the world’s most ecologically important regions. 

The study was led by researchers from the Chinese Academy of Sciences and China Agricultural University, with collaborators from the University of Cambridge, the University of Maryland and the University of Oklahoma.

Conservation efforts must urgently focus on the biodiversity hotspots, where farming pressure is rising fastest, the authors warned.

These ecologically important regions that scientists call ‘biodiversity hotspots’ are special places around the world that have a unique variety and high number of plants and animals found nowhere else on earth. 

These areas are biologically rich but are already highly degraded and have lost more than 70 per cent of their original natural vegetation. As a result, much of the world’s unique biodiversity is now squeezed into small and shrinking patches of habitat, making protection of these regions critical for preventing extinctions.

The study was focused on vertebrates like small mammals, birds and amphibians that live in very limited geographical areas. These species are especially vulnerable because even slight losses of habitat can wipe out entire populations. 

Many of them play important ecological roles, such as pollination, seed dispersal and pest control. Their decline can, therefore, trigger cascading effects that disrupt entire ecosystems.

The study showed that farming inside biodiversity hotspots has caused 26 per cent decline in species richness, meaning fewer varieties of plants and animals survive on cropland compared to natural habitats. There was also a clear decline in the total number of individual animals. 

At the same time, agriculture was found to be expanding, especially in the tropical regions near the equator. 

Compounding the problem, researchers found that much of the wildlife in these biodiversity hotspots lies outside protected parks and reserves. And these unprotected areas are more vulnerable to land use changes, further shrinking the rare and endemic species.

To assess impact of agriculture, researchers examined data from wildlife surveys conducted around the world stored in the global database PREDICTS.

They compared areas that still had natural forests and grasslands with areas that had been converted to farms, looking at three key measures: Number of different types of species, population of individual animals and plants and diversity of the community when accounting for population size.

They found the losses are severe. In areas converted to farmland inside these hotspots, 26 per cent fewer types of species survived compared to natural habitats, 12 per cent fewer individual animals and plants were present overall and there was nearly 9 per cent less diversity in communities of similar size. 

Using high-resolution satellite data, the researchers also tracked cropland changes between 2000 and 2019. They discovered that cropland inside biodiversity hotspots grew by 12 per cent, expanding faster than the global average of 9 per cent.

This was more pronounced in tropics and developing regions like Cerrado and Atlantic Forest in South America, Indo-Burma and Sundaland in Southeast Asia, and parts of eastern and southern Africa. 

By overlaying maps of cropland expansion with the distribution of small-ranged vertebrates, the researchers identified 3,483 high-risk danger zones across global biodiversity hotspots. Together, these cover about 1,741 million hectares of area.

Nearly 1,031 million hectares of these high-risk zones lie outside protected areas, leaving them vulnerable to further agricultural conversion.

The regions facing the greatest risks include the Atlantic Forest, Indo-Burma, Western Ghats and Sri Lanka, Sundaland and the Eastern Himalaya. 

The global patterns identified in the study are playing out dramatically in India's Western Ghats, one of the world's most critical biodiversity hotspots.

Down to Earth spoke to Akshay Gawade, a researcher from the Applied Environmental Research Foundation (AERF) based in Pune, to find out the situation on the ground. He said that land-use change is accelerating, large areas in Northern Western Ghats are being converted into orchards, encouraged partly by government subsidies. “Traditional farming systems are breaking down,” he added. “As younger generations move out, land is often sold to orchard owners or wood loggers. This is changing land-use patterns very quickly.”

As a result, agricultural expansion in the Western Ghats doesn't look like vast wheat fields. Instead, it takes form of plantations and mixed-use farming, that slices natural habitats into smaller, disconnected pieces, making it harder for wildlife to move and survive. 

This is detrimental to the biodiversity of these mountain ranges along India’s western coast that are home to over 5,000 flowering plants, 139 mammals, 508 birds and at least 325 globally threatened species, many of which especially amphibians and plants are found nowhere else on Earth.

Studies have shown how damaging these changes are for wildlife. A study by researcher Vijayan Jithin examined amphibians living on the rocky plateau landscapes in Maharashtra’s northern Western Ghats. He found that when these unique rocky ecosystems were converted into rice paddies and orchards, frog diversity plummeted. 

The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) has rated the Western Ghats as being of “significant concern” in its 2025 World Heritage Outlook 4 report, specifically citing land-use change and development pressures. The findings were based on assessment carried out by IUCN using inputs from state forest departments and recommendations from Western Ghats Ecology Expert Panel.

It is difficult to protect biodiversity on these lands because unlike national parks, privately owned agricultural and plantation landscapes are far harder to regulate, as economic and political interests are strong.

The global study does not analyse plantation landscapes directly, but its findings underline the risks of continued land conversion in biodiversity-rich regions, regardless of the form agriculture takes.

The authors of the Communications Earth & Environment study argued that simply expanding agriculture to meet growing food demand is not sustainable in biodiversity hotspots. Instead, they called for a slew of measures.

First, they advocated for expanding protected areas strategically in biodiversity hotspots, particularly where rare species with limited ranges are concentrated. Management and enforcement inside existing protected areas must be strengthened to ensure they actually safeguard wildlife, the said.

They emphasised on improving farm productivity on land already being cultivated, so there’s less pressure to clear new areas.

Increasing international cooperation on food trade is also imperative, the experts stressed, to ensure biodiversity-rich but economically struggling countries aren’t forced to destroy their ecosystems to feed wealthier nations.

And finally, they highlighted the importance of involving local communities in conservation efforts and monitoring, recognising that people living in these landscapes must be part of the solution.