In many Global North nations, rural areas are quietly emptying. Birth rates are low, young people are moving to cities, and whole regions — from Lapland to the Canadian Maritimes — are ageing and losing population. For some, this raises a hopeful idea: that nature might reclaim what people have left behind. But new research from Japan suggests that this is not what happens.
Instead, depopulation can lead to messy landscapes, broken ecological systems, and continued biodiversity decline — even when people are disappearing. For regions already planning for demographic change, the findings offer a timely, cautionary perspective.
Why This Matters Now
Rural depopulation is no longer an outlier trend. In Sweden, Finland, Estonia, and parts of rural Canada, the future is increasingly one of fewer people, fewer farms, and fewer traditional land uses. But land doesn’t become wilderness overnight. Former farms and forests need active management to support wildlife. If left untended, these landscapes often degrade, fragment, or become vulnerable to unmanaged development.
This new study provides compelling data from Japan’s wooded, agricultural, and peri-urban zones — landscapes remarkably similar to those of the Nordic countries and much of rural Canada. The central question: what actually happens to biodiversity when humans pull back?
Key Findings
Researchers tracked changes in both population and biodiversity over several decades. The headline results challenge common assumptions:
- Depopulation does not automatically restore ecosystems.
While it might reduce pressure on the land, it also undermines the traditional land use practices that supported many species in the first place. In 74% of species studied, populations continued to decline in areas where humans had withdrawn. - Land abandonment can accelerate biodiversity loss.
When farms and forests are left untended, they often become overgrown or degraded. Some species benefit, but many—including farmland birds, amphibians, and pollinators—suffer from the loss of the low-intensity disturbance they relied on. - Urban development persists in surprising ways.
Even in shrinking regions, urban sprawl continues. Infrastructure remains, houses expand, and car-centric land use patterns intensify—cutting into wild spaces despite declining population. - Agricultural intensification offsets depopulation’s benefits.
In many cases, land is not simply abandoned, but consolidated and intensified. As small farms disappear, larger operations take over—reducing habitat complexity and increasing pesticide use.
How This Applies to the Nordics and Canada
The parallels are clear. In Sweden, Finland, and Norway, rural depopulation is accelerating, especially in forested and agricultural zones. In Quebec, Nova Scotia, and parts of British Columbia, similar trends unfold. The idea that “less people = more nature” may be comforting—but it’s inaccurate.
Without deliberate planning, these trends could lead to:
- Silent species loss, especially among grassland birds and pollinators;
- Fragmented habitats, as unmanaged land slowly deteriorates;
- Ecological imbalance, as invasive species thrive in neglected zones;
- Lost cultural landscapes, where nature and farming once coexisted sustainably.
The Call to Action
This study reinforces a vital lesson: nature needs people, just not in extractive ways. In depopulating areas, biodiversity depends on new models of land stewardship:
- Support for small-scale, low-impact agriculture that maintains meadows, wetlands, and woodland edges¹;
- Managed rewilding, not abandonment—reintroducing grazing animals, restoring native vegetation, and removing invasive species;
- Land-use planning that prevents haphazard development even as populations decline;
- Policy frameworks that link rural development, conservation, and demographic reality²,³.
Endnotes
- Land abandonment, biodiversity and the CAP, European Court of Auditors, 2020-06-16
- Rural depopulation in the Nordics: Regional and demographic drivers, Nordregio, 2023-04-12
- Rural Canada’s population decline and the environmental opportunity, Policy Options, 2022-02-16
Source
Depopulation does not inherently benefit biodiversity, Nature Sustainability, 2024-06-17
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