Debate interesante: land sparing or land sharing

Maintaining the food supply for a growing population and ensuring the conservation of global biodiversity are important challenges facing humanity, but there is debate over how to best to achieve these two goals simultaneously. Phalan et al. (p. 1289; see the Perspective by Godfray) investigate whether land sparing (designating protected areas separately from intensive farming) or land sharing (allowing biodiversity and agriculture to coexist in the landscape) would be a more efficient approach to conserve biodiversity. The findings regarding birds and trees from Ghana and India indicate that land sparing is a more effective strategy than land sharing for reconciling food production with biodiversity conservation.