There’s still time to save about half of Earth’s land

Roughly half of Earth’s ice-free land remains without significant human influence, according to a new study.

The study in Global Change Biology compares four recent global maps of the conversion of natural lands to human land uses to reach its conclusions. The more affected half of Earth’s lands includes cities, croplands, and places intensively ranched or mined.

“The encouraging takeaway from this study is that if we act quickly and decisively, there is a slim window in which we can still conserve roughly half of Earth’s land in a relatively intact state,” says lead author Jason Riggio, a postdoctoral scholar