Land use has generally been considered a local environmental issue, but it is becoming a force of global importance. Worldwide changes to forests, farmlands, waterways and air are being driven by the need to provide food, fiber, water and shelter to over six billion people. Global croplands, pastures, plantations and urban areas have expanded in recent decades, accompanied by large increases in energy, water and fertilizer consumption, plus significant losses of biodiversity. Such changes in land use have enabled humans to appropriate an increasing share of the planet’s resources, but they also potentially undermine the capacity of ecosystems to sustain food production, maintain freshwater and forest resources, regulate climate and air quality, and ameliorate infectious diseases. We face the challenge of managing tradeoffs between immediate human needs and maintaining the capacity of the biosphere to provide goods and services in the long term.  In this presentation, we will review recent trends in global land use, and the implications for the sustainable use of the biosphere and the future of the larger Earth System. Furthermore, we will also present a possible means for connecting these scientific results to global decision-makers.  While impressive gains have been made in understanding the earth as a “whole system”, through sophisticated computer modeling techniques and satellite-based imagery, there is still a large “disconnect” between global, top-down views of changing environmental conditions, and the local, bottom-up perspective of how humans live in a changing environment.  Here we will describe a new effort underway to build an “Earth Collaboratory” – an interface between global environmental scientists and local experts drawn from all over the world. Building on new Internet-based technologies, such as the “wiki” collaborative interface and collaborative mapping tools, the Collaboratory will help bridge gaps between global and local, and between science and practice.