School of Earth and Environmental Sciences, The University of Queensland, Brisbane, QLD, Australia.
Centre for Biodiversity and Conservation Science, The University of Queensland, Brisbane, QLD, Australia.
Nat Commun. 2020 Sep 1;11(1):4174. doi: 10.1038/s41467-020-17928-5.
Renewable energy production is necessary to halt climate change and reverse associated biodiversity losses. However, generating the required technologies and infrastructure will drive an increase in the production of many metals, creating new mining threats for biodiversity. Here, we map mining areas and assess their spatial coincidence with biodiversity conservation sites and priorities. Mining potentially influences 50 million km of Earth's land surface, with 8% coinciding with Protected Areas, 7% with Key Biodiversity Areas, and 16% with Remaining Wilderness. Most mining areas (82%) target materials needed for renewable energy production, and areas that overlap with Protected Areas and Remaining Wilderness contain a greater density of mines (our indicator of threat severity) compared to the overlapping mining areas that target other materials. Mining threats to biodiversity will increase as more mines target materials for renewable energy production and, without strategic planning, these new threats to biodiversity may surpass those averted by climate change mitigation.
可再生能源的生产对于遏制气候变化和扭转相关的生物多样性丧失是必要的。然而，生产所需的技术和基础设施将推动许多金属的产量增加，从而对生物多样性造成新的采矿威胁。在这里，我们绘制了采矿区，并评估了它们与生物多样性保护地和优先事项的空间重合情况。采矿可能会影响地球表面的 5000 万平方公里，其中 8%与保护区重合，7%与生物多样性重点地区重合，16%与剩余荒野重合。大多数采矿区（82%）的目标是可再生能源生产所需的材料，与保护区和剩余荒野重叠的区域的矿山密度（我们的威胁严重程度指标）高于目标为其他材料的重叠采矿区。随着越来越多的矿山瞄准可再生能源生产所需的材料，对生物多样性的采矿威胁将会增加，如果没有战略规划，这些新的生物多样性威胁可能会超过气候变化缓解所避免的威胁。
