8.5 ‘Plunder thy foreigner’: unsustainable land-use patterns combined with reduced international cooperation
In a ‘plunder thy foreigner’ future, unilateralist tendencies define nations’ approaches to resource use and foreign policy, with each nation prioritizing near-term
domestic security of supply over the long-term conservation of the global commons. As a consequence, all countries lose out. Land-poor geopolitical elites increasingly seek to exploit further land resources overseas. Land superpowers may do much the same, adding to aggregate supply pressures by curtailing their own exports of land-derived goods. In this future, threatened land-wealthy countries and potential land elites become more vulnerable to exploitation by those with greater economic and geopolitical clout, while land-poor developing countries struggle to meet domestic demand through trade. Of the four scenarios explored in this chapter, a ‘plunder thy foreigner’ future has the worst outcomes for planetary health.
8.5.1 Prevalent dynamics
In a ‘plunder thy foreigner’ future, countries adopt narrowly self-interested geopolitical strategies in response to both rising competition for land and feared or actual resource shortages. Militarily, economically or geopolitically powerful countries increasingly rely on ‘plundering’ the resources of less powerful ones, and there is a generalized readiness to use coercive or predatory tactics to secure control of land and land-based resources. The risk of conflict over land is high in this future, and countries’ commitments to upholding multilateral agreements are subordinated to the pursuit of short-term resource security.
Powerful countries, particularly land-poor geopolitical elites, look to exploit the resources of those in a position of less influence. As a result of coercion or power asymmetries, outsiders’ interests may override local interests, as certain countries exploit weak governance in others to drive unsustainable increases in food and biofuel production beyond their own borders. Countries vulnerable to this type of exploitation include some that currently contribute substantially to global food production but are at high risk of – and have low resilience to – climate impacts and water scarcity. One example is India, which is the world’s second largest wheat producer, the sixth largest producer of maize and soy, and a major producer of various animal products.
Powerful countries, particularly land-poor geopolitical elites, will look to exploit the resources of those in a position of less influence.
The situation would be exacerbated if today’s land superpowers, such as Brazil, China and the US, acquire more land resources abroad as a substitute or supplement for their own resources. Reductions in domestic production (either out of preference to preserve or repurpose land resources, or out of necessity due to the impacts of climate change) could diminish the position of land superpowers as global suppliers of staple crops and biofuels. This could seriously disrupt global food markets, much as occurred in 2022 when wheat supply from Ukraine, one of the world’s most important producers, was dramatically curtailed in the aftermath of Russia’s full-scale invasion.
Prospects for sustainable trade falter in a ‘plunder thy foreigner’ future. A breakdown in international cooperation undermines efforts to govern the environmental and social impacts of supply chains, while the effectiveness of measures agreed in the early 2020s to reduce trade-related deforestation is limited by countries’ increased pursuit of extractive activities overseas as a means of meeting demand at home. Trade-related environmental destruction intensifies, driven by agricultural expansion in areas such as the Amazon and Congo basins. Such trends create a threat multiplier for food security, affecting even the wealthiest nations.
8.5.2 Relative winners in a ‘plunder thy foreigner’ future
Land superpowers, land-poor geopolitical elites and threatened land-wealthy countries fare best, relative to other typologies, in a ‘plunder thy foreigner’ future by capitalizing on their land wealth or ability to leverage access to foreign resources. The most likely winners include countries or territories with substantial existing land investments and trade facilitation arrangements (for example, Brazil, China, Cyprus, Hong Kong, Malaysia, Singapore and the US). Countries with significant control over existing or expanding trade networks (China, for example, through its Belt and Road Initiative), as well as import-reliant countries that have extensive established trade networks due to historical influence (e.g. the UK), are also better placed than many to secure continued access to internationally traded land-based resources.
However, even these relative winners still stand to lose out over the longer term: of the four futures explored in this chapter, ‘plunder thy foreigner’ has the worst outcomes for planetary health. All countries are negatively affected, to varying degrees, by the collapse of multilateral efforts to slow climate change, land degradation and biodiversity loss, and by the increased exploitation of land-based resources relative to BAU dynamics.
8.5.3 Relative losers in a ‘plunder thy foreigner’ future
Land-poor developing countries fare worst in this future. Their lack of resources becomes increasingly severe in a world dominated by unilateralism, and in which foreign aid, financing and development prospects for the poorest countries are diminished. Land-poor developing countries are typically least resilient to shocks, have high exposure and vulnerability to climate change impacts (such as temperature extremes, drought and flooding), and have limited governance capacity. Vietnam is an example of a developing country that broadly fits these characteristics, despite also having areas of cropland and natural/semi-natural vegetated land comparable with those of Germany, a land superpower. Partly due to financial constraints, land-poor developing countries are also relatively limited in their ability to meet domestic resource needs by increasing imports.
There are also significant risks for potential land elites and threatened land-wealthy countries in this future, although some of the latter have the potential to fare relatively well in some circumstances. Countries in both typologies become vulnerable to exploitation by land superpowers and land-poor geopolitical elites looking to secure access to foreign land-based resources. For threatened land-wealthy countries, the balance could tip either way: if their resources are well managed and well governed, they may be afforded relative security by a high degree of self-sufficient provisioning; if their governance is weak, their land resources may be exploited by other nations, or their own land resource base may become so degraded that they too resort to plundering foreign lands.
Exploitative practices by geopolitically powerful nations – whether land-poor or land-wealthy – to secure overseas land-based goods would have particularly catastrophic consequences when undertaken in carbon- or biodiversity-rich regions. The loss of carbon sinks and biodiversity would most heavily affect land superpowers such as Brazil, and potential land elites, such as the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and Zambia, that are particularly well endowed with this form of land wealth but whose capacity or willingness to protect these resources is limited. The ability of such countries to sustain significant agricultural production and exports may be threatened by ecosystem degradation and climate risks, with the challenges exacerbated by large population increases (as projected in the DRC, for example). Also significantly impacted would be land-poor developing countries (such as Burundi) that might seek to increase agricultural or industrial production in carbon- and biodiversity-rich areas.
As well as the consequences for individual countries, such a trajectory has serious implications for preservation of the global commons. For example, the DRC has the world’s third highest carbon stock in living forest biomass (after Brazil and Russia) and is highly resilient to environmental shocks; it thus plays an important global role in helping to limit temperature rise and the impacts of climate change. However, it also has very weak governance and economic capacity, and is highly vulnerable to exploitation under ‘plunder thy foreigner’ dynamics. Given the global importance of the country’s resources (see Box 17), the negative outcomes of such exploitation could be far-reaching.
In sum, a ‘plunder thy foreigner’ future has negative outcomes for all countries. In an uncooperative, deglobalized world dominated by unilateralism, circumstances could arise that would disadvantage even the most geopolitically powerful and land-wealthy countries. ‘Plundering’ countries are likely to rely on global transport infrastructure for access to overseas resources, but this infrastructure may be deliberately disrupted by others for geopolitical leverage. The risk of such an event is particularly high at certain ‘chokepoints’ of international strategic importance. This has been starkly illustrated since 2022 in the context of Russia’s war on Ukraine. Russian use of blockades to cut exports of wheat and other commodities through Ukraine’s Black Sea routes, along with the impact of Western sanctions on exports of food and fertilizer from Russia, caused severe food price inflation over a prolonged period. The ramifications for food security have been global, and at least in relation to food-price volatility are expected to persist in the medium term.
8.5.4 Evolving dynamics of a ‘plunder thy foreigner’ future
A ‘plunder thy foreigner’ future is ultimately unsustainable. The worsening impacts of climate change and continued biodiversity loss, combined with exploitative practices by powerful nations and the reduced ability of low-income countries to use, protect or restore their land resources effectively, may reduce the availability of resources globally. In addition, safeguards to mitigate the worst effects of trade protectionism may diminish as multilateral agreements are disregarded and international relations veer towards unilateral decision-making.
With longer-term resource security in this future being severely eroded through short-termist and protectionist strategies, countries may resort to reducing their reliance on global trade and boosting domestic production (at the expense of land restoration and protection) to overcome some of the instability inherent in this future, thereby creating the conditions for our next indicative future, ‘self-sufficiency for national security’.
8.6 ‘Self-sufficiency for national security’: sustainable land use in an uncooperative world
In a ‘self-sufficiency for national security’ future, countries prioritize domestic resource self-sufficiency over trade and multilateralism. Domestic land use becomes more sustainable in countries with strong governance, but a retreat from international cooperation in tackling global challenges causes planetary health to decline alarmingly and precludes the possibility of achieving optimal global land-use allocations. Land-poor developing countries, threatened land-wealthy countries and land-poor geopolitical elites suffer the most adverse outcomes in this future.
8.6.1 Prevalent dynamics
A ‘self-sufficiency for national security’ future sees countries focus on becoming self-sufficient in the supply of land-based goods. This approach is prompted by increasingly frequent and severe disruptions to production and international trade of food, fuel and other commodities as a result of climate impacts, environmental degradation and biodiversity loss, together with health-related crises (such as pandemics), geopolitical tensions and conflict-related disruptions. As countries prioritize domestic supply of resources to meet their own consumption, international cooperation becomes increasingly fragile and eroded. Signals of intent – as already seen from certain countries, notably China (see Box 16) – on pursuing greater self-sufficiency potentially accelerate similar moves in other countries.
A more protectionist approach to achieving resource security affects geopolitics and trade. By seeking to boost domestic supply, countries export less and reduce the volume of international resource trade. The pursuit of overseas land acquisitions by land-constrained countries (seeking to meet domestic demand) becomes increasingly fraught and contested. The global composition and distribution of food production potentially change dramatically as major exporters reconfigure production to meet domestic nutritional needs and optimize agricultural resources accordingly, only exporting the surplus to neighbouring countries. As an increasing number of countries produce food largely for their own demand, this exacerbates the decline in the global availability of traded food.
At the global level, this realignment of resource production leads to large-scale inefficiencies and productivity losses. Some countries struggle to produce staple crops for which there is high domestic demand but for which national agroclimatic conditions are ill-suited. Conversely, the reduction in the size of export markets for land-based goods partially alleviates pressures on some existing production hotspots. This allows land use to be reconfigured to support a greater diversity of produce (although only for national consumption) and support the provision of more ecosystem services.
Global trade and its governance look more different from BAU conditions than in any other future. The World Trade Organization (WTO) becomes largely irrelevant as countries withdraw from global trade. Existing and emergent trading blocs such as the EU, Mercosur and the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) become more isolated and inward-looking, pivoting to concentrate almost entirely on intra-regional trade, rather than advancing mutually beneficial agreements with other regions.
In international relations, the pursuit of narrow national self-interests takes precedence over multilateral cooperation on global goals, including climate change mitigation and adaptation financing. More positively, there are stronger commitments to action on environmental issues that pose more immediate or tangible threats to local livelihoods and productive capacity. Some countries see a greater interest in preserving and restoring their natural vegetation cover, and in improving stewardship of water flows and providing habitats and food sources for pollinators, to support functioning ecosystems, better meet provisioning requirements and build resilience to environmental shocks. Such incentives are potentially stronger than in a BAU future, where there might be assumptions that provisioning can be reliably secured through international trade. At a local or national level, countries see greater urgency in the need to avoid agricultural land expansion, instead optimizing food production for maximum nutrition and minimal resource use. Such an approach is particularly likely in high-income and upper-middle-income land superpowers with strong governance capacity.
At a local or national level, countries see greater urgency in the need to avoid agricultural land expansion, instead optimizing food production for maximum nutrition and minimal resource use.
This future is not the most damaging to planetary health of the four explored here. However, it weakens international cooperation on collective goals in ways that endanger the very security that countries would be seeking to achieve through self-sufficiency.
8.6.2 Relative winners in a ‘self-sufficiency for national security’ future
Land superpowers such as the US and Australia, together with potential land elites such as Poland, fare best in a ‘self-sufficiency for national security’ future. This reflects their strong governance and economic capacity, good-quality soils and relative resilience to environmental shocks. Large food-exporting countries such as Argentina, Brazil, Canada, Russia and the US have the greatest scope to reconfigure their agricultural land to meet national requirements, and to restore portions of lost ecosystems to bolster biodiversity, sequester carbon and improve resilience to environmental impacts.
Certain land-poor geopolitical elites, such as Saudi Arabia and the UAE, also fare reasonably well in this future – provided they can decouple enough of their resource demands from land-based production to reduce their reliance on overseas supply. An ability to harness economic, technical and governance capacity is also important for their self-sufficiency initiatives, as countries must extensively reconfigure their domestic land use. Potential solutions include increasing fruit and vegetable production through technologies such as controlled-environment agriculture and water desalination powered by renewables. These methods allow for a greater range of produce to be grown in otherwise unfavourable agroclimatic conditions, with less dependence on fertile soils and rainfall, and with smaller absolute land footprints.
In such settings, clean energy needs are potentially met through land-sparing renewable technologies, with solar power offering promise in arid areas. A greater abundance of cheap and plentiful renewable energy increases the possibilities for developing and deploying land-sparing carbon sequestration technologies, especially in areas where nature-based solutions such as reforestation are less feasible because of previous degradation of the environment. Greater investment in, and adoption of, technologies to support the circular use of resources further supports self-sufficiency in countries where opportunities to import goods are limited.
Land acquisitions and leasing agreements are important determinants of outcomes in this future. Countries with a high capacity to purchase land overseas are better equipped to diversify their resource supply, while those with plentiful domestic land may benefit financially by leasing it to others. Import-dependent countries that have already acquired substantial areas of foreign land (e.g. Cyprus) may continue to exploit such assets, but managing land acquisitions and supplier relationships becomes challenging for them in an increasingly uncooperative and disconnected world.
8.6.3 Relative losers in a ‘self-sufficiency for national security’ future
Land-poor developing countries fare worst in this future. Countries such as Burundi, Guinea-Bissau and Haiti – which have poor governance capacity, high exposure to climate impacts and water scarcity, and a strong reliance on development aid – are particularly vulnerable. In these countries, reduced ability to import goods, cuts in development assistance and increasingly frequent climate-related disruptions to domestic food production threaten serious consequences for public health and livelihoods. The limited capacity of land-poor developing countries to mitigate, adapt to and build resilience to environmental shocks, including those resulting from climate change, amplifies the risks. Environmental degradation and climate impacts accelerate the deterioration of land-based resources and imperil people whose livelihoods depend on these resources, including in the food, forestry and tourism sectors. Social inequalities widen, and household insecurity deepens.
Along with the grave challenges for land-poor developing countries, a ‘self-sufficiency for national security’ future carries risks for countries across all other typologies. For example, the drive for self-sufficiency could result in unsustainable patterns of land clearance and exploitation among potential land elites such as the DRC and the Republic of the Congo, where high-quality land is abundant but governance and economic capacity are lacking. Unmanaged and unsustainable land use in these countries would have local, regional and global consequences, depleting globally significant ecosystems and land-based resources with significant environmental regulating functions (Box 17). Scope for peaceful interventions to mitigate such losses, or to incentivize their preservation and restoration, would be limited by the erosion of multilateral agreements and international cooperation.
Threatened land-wealthy countries – most notably Chile, India, Indonesia and Tanzania – may also suffer negative outcomes if opportunities for ecosystem restoration as a means of building resilience to climate and water risks are squandered through poor governance.
While land superpowers, as mentioned, fare relatively well in this future, many struggle to balance the achievement of sustainable, self-sufficient provisioning with the maintenance or restoration of ecosystem services that enhance domestic and international resilience to environmental and geopolitical shocks. Countries such as the US have undergone extensive land-use change in the past. As a result, they have lost much natural habitat and seen their vulnerability to climate and water impacts increase. They may struggle to meet domestic demand if they are unable to make that demand sustainable and fail to undertake sufficient ecosystem restoration measures. Similarly, countries such as Australia, where past land exploitation has degraded soils, or China, where climate and water risks are high but resilience is low, may face difficulties despite their land wealth. In addition, reduced global trade may hurt economies that depend heavily on earnings from the export of land-based goods; such countries include Australia, New Zealand, Norway, Paraguay and Ukraine.
A decline in global trade of land-based resources also poses serious risks to import-dependent countries, particularly land-poor developing countries that have high food import needs coupled with rapid population growth (such as Lebanon and Tunisia) and/or land or other natural resource constraints that limit the scope for increasing domestic production. Beyond the immediate risk to food supply in these countries, a large-scale reduction in imports may prompt them to make economic or other policy responses of international consequence.
Land-poor geopolitical elites could also lose out in this future. Particularly at risk are countries such as Kuwait and the UAE, both of which rely heavily on imports to meet nutritional needs and have few or no land acquisitions overseas. Countries that have already leased large portions of land (in a previous, more globalized context) to other users may have limited scope to become self-sufficient, as such land is presumably no longer available to service domestic needs. Equally, those with existing overseas land acquisitions may struggle to keep control of those assets in the event that other land-poor geopolitical elites try to appropriate them. Each such scenario raises the possibility of increased conflict over land resources. For example, where land-leasing countries renege on past transactions in an effort to increase their own self-sufficiency, this may prompt the use of hard power by their counterparties.
8.6.4 Evolving dynamics of a ‘self-sufficiency for national security’ future
This future represents the furthest departure from BAU. It entails a significant erosion of globally interdependent trade networks, a retreat from multilateralism, and an increasing intent on the part of governments to preserve, restore and utilize land resources at locally sustainable levels. Although, in principle, more robust national commitments to protecting and restoring natural resources and ecosystems have the potential to benefit countries across all typologies, entrenched capacity and governance issues make the realization of this more optimistic outlook unlikely.
Rather, countries across all typologies are more likely to fare poorly in this future as protectionism and a lack of international cooperation increase the potential for conflicts and social inequalities. If such pressures undermine efforts to manage land in sustainable and progressive ways, it is foreseeable that the ‘self-sufficiency for national security’ future could degenerate into a ‘plunder thy foreigner’ type of dynamic.
More positively, this scenario’s primary focus on domestic resource security could ultimately result in greater recognition by countries of the need to also optimize land use globally, including the need to protect and restore globally important resources to limit the impacts of environmental shocks. Over time, this recognition, in combination with the difficulties countries are likely to encounter in achieving self-sufficiency in practice, may foster greater cooperation in international relations, reopening opportunities for multilateral agreements and prompting a transition to the future we characterize as ‘a land-wealthy world’ (see Section 8.7).
