Forest and landscape restoration (FLR) is a promising strategy for improving water, energy and food securities (WEF-Nexus). We advocate that 'forest security' should form a fourth, foundational dimension of a novel water, energy, food and forest security nexus (WEFF-Nexus) framework. Key principles of this new framework support an integrated role of forests in sustainable development, and engagement of local communities in nature-based solutions, particularly in the Global South.We believe that this new approach can help to accelerate the pace and magnitude of changes needed for achieving the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. Main textSafeguarding biodiversity and promoting a sustainable and equitable sharing of the planet's natural resources is one of humanity's major challenges 1 . Forests are irreplaceable for maintaining biodiversity and provide crucial direct and indirect benefits to people 2 . Unfortunately, high rates of deforestation and land degradation are transforming landscapes to the extent that they require environmental protection to slow these processes and restoration interventions to support flows of ecosystem services 3 . Severely degraded landscapes have low conservation value and reduced capacity to support human well-being now or in the future 4 . Additionally, three-quarters of poor people worldwide live in rural areas 5 . Managing these altered landscapes to maintain agricultural productivity as well as diverse ecosystem services that support sustainable livelihoods often presents a "wicked problem" -i.e. trade-offs are common 6 .Forest and landscape restoration (FLR) has emerged as a socio-ecological approach to expand restoration objectives and restore landscape characteristics such as productivity, resilience, and sustainability 7 . However, FLR demands complex multidisciplinary approaches based on reliable, coherent conceptual frameworks 8 . Understanding, foreseeing, and minimizing trade-offs is crucial to achieve so-called 'win-win' outcomes for the environment and societies 7 . One possible solution lies in building a holistic framework that recognizes the role of forests as paramount for ecosystem functionality and human well-being. This framework for guiding policy interventions would not eliminate trade-offs but should, ideally, help to recognize, anticipate, and minimize them 9 .Much forest restoration research focuses on targeting priority areas for increasing forest cover based on biophysical and socioeconomic features of landscapes. For instance, Banks-Leite and colleagues 10 used biodiversity conservation thresholds to map and prioritize areas for strategically restoring the Brazilian Atlantic Forest and proposed that re-purposing only 6.5% of the existing agricultural subsidy for that region would support cost-effective restoration on private lands. Another comprehensive study 7 calculated a restoration opportunity score for all tropical
Aim Protected areas are frequently defined on the basis of biological importance. Ecosystem services are expected to be under protection when biodiversity is preserved; however, new approaches are needed to confirm this statement. We evaluated how spatial associations between ecosystem services and plant biodiversity on a large spatial scale influence their representativeness in current protected areas. Location Brazilian seasonally tropical dry forest (Caatinga). Methods We produced woody plant biodiversity maps (species richness, narrow‐range species richness and beta diversity) using species distribution modelling. We estimated regulating services (water purification, carbon storage and erosion control), provisioning services (water supply, fodder and agriculture) and supporting services (water balance, net primary productivity and soil fertility) using primary data and a proxy‐based approach. We performed spatial correlation analyses between biodiversity and ecosystem services using Pearson's correlation test. After estimating the percentage of hotspot areas of biodiversity and ecosystem services presented in two types of protected areas (strict protection and sustainable use), we compared it to expected distribution by null model. Results Mostly weak and intermediary positive correlations arose among biodiversity and ecosystem services (beta diversity with water balance and species richness with water purification and carbon storage). Negative correlations occurred among water balance with both species richness and narrow‐range species richness. Strict protection areas were well represented in terms of carbon storage and underrepresented for fodder and agriculture. Sustainable use protected areas were important for water balance. Plant biodiversity variables were not represented in current protected areas. Main conclusions Positive correlations between biodiversity and ecosystem services do not assure the protection of these targets in protected areas. Surrogates choice based only on spatial correlations might not effectively protect biodiversity and ecosystem services. Selection of priority areas must include biodiversity and ecosystem services as distinct conservation targets.
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