Cropland is expanding fastest where nature is most irreplaceable. Nearly 1,031 million hectares of high-risk zones lie outside protected areas, leaving unique wildlife exposed to further conversion.
Farming inside the planet’s biodiversity hotspots—regions that are exceptionally rich in species found nowhere else but have already lost more than 70% of their original vegetation—has driven a 26% decline in species richness, according to a global analysis published December 26, 2025, in Communications Earth & Environment. The study focused on small-ranged vertebrates (including small mammals, birds and amphibians) and found fewer species and fewer individual animals persist on cropland compared with nearby natural habitats, with community diversity also down by nearly 9%.
RELEVANT SUSTAINABLE GOALS
Cropland Is Expanding Fastest Where Nature Is Most Irreplaceable
Using high-resolution satellite data from 2000–2019, researchers documented a 12% expansion of cropland inside hotspots—outpacing the 9% global average. Growth was most pronounced across tropical and developing regions, including the Cerrado and Atlantic Forest in South America; Indo-Burma and Sundaland in Southeast Asia; and parts of eastern and southern Africa.
By overlaying cropland growth with distributions of small-ranged vertebrates, the team identified 3,483 high-risk zonesacross global hotspots, spanning 1,741 million hectares. Of this, nearly 1,031 million hectares fall outside protected areas, making them especially vulnerable to conversion. Among the regions facing the greatest risks: the Atlantic Forest, Indo-Burma, Western Ghats and Sri Lanka, Sundaland, and the Eastern Himalaya.
Western Ghats: Local Land-Use Change Is Fragmenting Habitat
The global pattern is playing out in India’s Western Ghats, one of the world’s most critical hotspots. Land-use change is accelerating, with large areas in the northern Ghats converted into orchards, a shift encouraged in part by government subsidies, according to Akshay Gawade of the Applied Environmental Research Foundation (AERF). As younger generations move away, land is sold to orchard owners or wood loggers, slicing natural habitats into smaller, disconnected pieces.
The impacts are already visible. Research by Vijayan Jithin on rocky plateau landscapes in Maharashtra’s northern Western Ghats found that conversion to rice paddies and orchards led to a plummet in frog diversity. The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) rated the Western Ghats of “significant concern” in its 2025 World Heritage Outlook 4, citing land-use change and development pressures—findings based on inputs from state forest departments and recommendations from the Western Ghats Ecology Expert Panel.
Why Small-Ranged Species Matter
Species with tiny geographic ranges are highly vulnerable—even small habitat losses can erase entire populations. Many provide essential ecological services such as pollination, seed dispersal, and pest control; their decline can trigger cascading disruptions across ecosystems. In hotspots—already reduced to small, shrinking patches—the pressure from agricultural expansion further tightens the squeeze on endemic wildlife.
Drawing on the global PREDICTS database of wildlife surveys, the study compared natural forests and grasslandswith converted farmland across hotspots, measuring:
- Species richness (number of different species) — down 26% on cropland;
- Abundance (total number of individual animals and plants) — down 12%;
- Community diversity (accounting for population size) — down nearly 9%.
Hotspots such as the Western Ghats—home to over 5,000 flowering plants, 139 mammals, 508 birds, and at least 325 globally threatened species, many endemic—illustrate the stakes. Because much of the at-risk land lies outside parks and reserves, often as private agricultural and plantation landscapes, conventional protection tools are harder to apply, and economic and political interests complicate regulation. The study’s message is blunt: without rapid, targeted action, the world’s most irreplaceable ecosystems will continue to lose species—and the ecological functions they provide—at pace.
Farming inside biodiversity hotspots has already stripped away more than a quarter of species richness, with cropland expanding fastest where nature is least replaceable and most of the danger zones beyond formal protection. The science points to a clear response: protect strategically, farm smarter where fields already exist, trade more fairly, and empower local communities to keep what remains of Earth’s richest ecosystems from sliding further toward silence.
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