Appropriation of Ecological Space

Although it is recognised that Thomas Robert Malthus was wrong when he posited a contradiction between population increase and agricultural growth, there are increasing signs that he could be proved right in the future. Perhaps Malthus was too late and too early in his prediction? He was too late, because he did not foresee the shift from land-based resources to fossil fuels, which did away with the limits of agricultural growth, at least temporarily; and he was too early to witness that fossil fuels would come up against their own limits in terms of supply as well as in terms of global warming. This study deals with land-based resources and the role they play in the global socio-ecological metabolic regime, both today and in the future. In particular, the controversial use of agrofuels as a solution to coming scarcity is subjected to close scrutiny. As a global society we are entering an era where land areas and land-based resources are coming to the fore once again for capital accumulation and economic growth after two centuries of fossil fuel dominance. But land areas are limited, especially if we wish to curb deforestation to fight climate change. Then peak oil coexists with peak soil, and finding the land areas needed to supply food, feed, fibres and fuels to sustain a global population of nine, ten billion people will not be easily achieved. On the contrary, this study maintains that economic power will translate into the appropriation of ecological space, land and land-based resources in various ways, through trade and environmental load displacements.