Humans to push further into wildlife habitats across more than 50% of land by 2070 – study | Sharing increasingly crowded spaces could result in greater risk of pandemics, human and animal conflicts and loss of nature, say researchers

From the article: Over the next 50 years, people will push further into wildlife habitats across more than half the land on Earth, scientists have found, threatening biodiversity and increasing the chance of future pandemics.

Humans have already transformed or occupied between 70% and 75% of the world’s land. [Research](https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.adp7706) published in Science Advances on Wednesday found the overlap between human and wildlife populations is expected to increase across 57% of the Earth’s land by 2070, driven by human population growth.

“You have places such as forests where there are virtually no people, where we will start to see some more human presence and activities, and interactions with wildlife,” said Neil Carter, the principal investigator of the study and an associate professor of environment and sustainability at the University of Michigan in the US.

“People are increasing their pressures and negative impacts on … species, which is something that we’ve seen already for many years. It is part of the cause of the biodiversity-loss crisis that we’re in,” he said.