Several colleagues of mine just published a paper highlighting how relatively little conservation research occurs in our planet's most biodiverse regions (http://journals.plos.org/plosbiology/article?id=10.1371%2Fjournal.pbio.1002413), which gets towards your question. While much of the developed world has already ravaged its ecological communities and their services, tropical ecosystems (both marine and on land) are in my view where land change impacts are greatest on local communities as a whole. Having said that, changes in land clearing policies in Queensland, Australia by the previous government have essentially resulted in releasing so much carbon that any savings from federal government carbon reduction policies are completely wiped out. When this occurs in the Amazon there is uproar (rightly so), but these impacts are often overlooked closer to home.

Hi Robert, 

This is a question with multiple responses. In my point of view, the biodiversity hotspots suggested by Myers et al. (2000) are a good start. 

http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v403/n6772/full/403853a0.html

Best wishes,

N

Environmental change impacts more on poor persons and countries. Change in the use of the oceans (including seabed) and the atmosphere, the global commons, may have more impact both for the global and local community. And our knowledge and institutions seem less developed for mitigation of negative impacts.   

Just a little practical case as example on the disparate attention to land versus ocean from an economic and ecological perspective (attached). 

Conference Paper Web-based biodiversity geodatabases for environmental assess...

Biodiversity hot spots concept although successful in identifying priority areas, it could not address other areas which are equally important due to threshold values designed for a hot spot (1500 endemic species/70% loss of original vegetation in that area). Leaving apart 35 hot spot s, we have to work out identify certain areas in different parts of the world relaxing these threshold values. Habitat destruction should be the most important criterion in identifying these.  

Dear Robert,

In getting old, my answer was more an epistemological projection of the human consciousness with the hope for a good direction for a more intelligent development.

Best regards

Yves

As mentioned by Gils most affected areas are poorer countries, these countries should be focused first and the mountains/hilly areas should be focused as shifting cultivation is still going on causing enormous pressure. Besides, plantation of alien species causing problems in these countries.

Hey 

I think mesic Savannas are most vulnerable to land use change. 

I guess if you cross the deforestation hotspots to the biodiversity hotspots you will get e general figure of impact on biodiversity. However, there are  vulnerable and endemic species out of the biodiversity hotspots that won't be accounted with this approach. With regard to human societies I guess an ecosystem service mapping approach would be needed to address the issue with a broader perspective. The dependency degree each society has to specific ecosystem services (e.g. water supply, forest products, moisture recycling, carbon sequestration, etc) must also be taken into account. So, not simple answer for this question.

I think most of the developing countries from asia, and brazil has tremendous impact on land use because of increasing population and development of technology, irrigation etc.

I think that areas of war, forests, and shorelines areas have big impact on ecological system

It seems riparian zones would have the greatest overall impact.  Human activity in such areas might alter both aquatic and terrestrial ecosystem dynamics.  Human societies are still linked to water use which is why many significant human population centers are located near surface waters.

As I know, Western Ghats of India is one among many, This area witnessing rapid anthropocentric changes and are less documented.