The great reversal: nature's chance to restore land and sea

In the middle of the 20th century, humans began to reverse the pattern they followed for millennia of extending further into nature to meet needs for food and materials. Recognizing this Great Reversal, I explore the areas in human use for cities, logging, and farming and search the centuries for principles and trends to forecast land use in the latter part of the 21st century when global population may number 10 billion. Offsetting the sprawl of cities, rising yields in farms and forests and changing tastes can release large amounts of land. For example, with growing population and cities, the USA in the next century could still newly spare for nature an area twice the size of Spain. Shifting from hunting to farming fish can similarly spare nature. Globally, wise and intelligent humanity can extend the Great Reversal into a Great Restoration of nature on land and in the sea. (C) 2000 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.