Land conversion

Preventing conversion of a forested area to another use such as agricultural land or urban area.

A global overview

Converting land for human use – such as turning forests and wetlands into cities, farmland and highways – depletes Earth’s carbon sinks, destroys rich wildlife habitats, and undermines the land’s role in continually cycling water, nitrogen and phosphorus.

How is digital tech relevant to land conversion?

Areas of tension

These are the issues, negative impacts and concerns collectively raised by the attendees from our pilot workshops.

For the global population
  • Land is converted to house the infrastructure needed to run digital tech.
  • Unethical land grabbing for extraction of natural resources and to build data centers to support the growth of the digital tech industry.
  • Digital tech companies wishing to do well, invest and promote in poorly conceived carbon offset schemes which do not involve local communities and fail to reforest sustainably.

How can we nudge these tensions for the better?

Grounds for hope

These are visions and ideas for change collectively raised by the attendees from our pilot workshops.

For the global population

  • Community-led decision-making about land use and protection.
  • We make better use of urban infrastructure – things like rainwater harvesting, heat waste reuse, urban/rooftop gardens, rooftop solar, etc.
  • Smart liveable cities with tech-based ride sharing and public transport to incentivize more people to live in urban areas.

Keen to learn more?

If you’d like to explore these issues yourself, either as an individual or with your work colleagues, why not run your own workshop?

Our workshop methodology is open source and available for anyone to use for free. Alternatively you can hire trusted professionals to facilitate the process on your behalf.