Grasslands are vanishing nearly four times faster than forests, global study finds

Along with forests, grasslands and wetlands are also being converted to cropland and pasture at an increasing rate around the world—often for livestock farming and the export of agricultural products. An international team of researchers, including Martin Persson from Chalmers, has now analyzed for the first time where, for what purpose, and how quickly natural non-forest ecosystems are being converted into agricultural land on a global scale. The results show that these ecologically highly valuable areas are converted at a rate almost four times faster than forests.