Numerous studies show that some of today’s most popular conservation policies are doing little to help those species most affected by farming. What’s more, by reducing how much food is produced per unit area (yield), they are driving up food imports and thereby having an impact on wildlife overseas.

Land sharing increases the populations of relatively common animals and plants, such as skylarks, field poppies and the more widespread butterflies. And highly targeted interventions can help some vulnerable species. But in the main, land sharing does little for those most specialized or threatened species that need large stretches of contiguous non-farmed habitat, such as the many birds, invertebrates, plants and fungi dependent on old-growth forest.

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Some conservation groups and landowners have increasingly advocated for rewilding, in which large, contiguous areas of land are taken out of farming. Rewilding can benefit species that are locally vulnerable or endangered… However, assessments of the benefits rarely consider offshore damage. As with land sharing, unless people change their diets or eat less, or yields are increased in areas that are still farmed, the removal of land from productive agriculture will increase the demand for food imports, and so damage biodiversity elsewhere.

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