ABSTRACT
Land and the use of land provide a key link between human activity and the natural environment. Our use of land is one of the principal drivers of global environmental change, and, in turn, environmental change, particularly climate change, will increasingly influence the use made of land as communities strive to adapt to, and mitigate, the effects of a changing climate. For instance, as farmers and land managers are increasingly positioned as ‘carbon stewards’ and new environmental bastions in the struggle against climate change, there is growing pressure to adapt land use and land management practices in order to minimize carbon losses, maximize carbon storage (see Smith in this volume) and provide substitutes for fossil fuels. At the same time, a series of long-term trends (such as changing global dietary patterns) and shorter-term ‘events’ (such as recent poor harvests and the ongoing drought in Australia) have led to constrained global food supply and stimulated pronounced changes in global agricultural commodity prices, putting further pressure on agriculturally productive land.
