Avoiding catastrophic climate change requires rapid decarbonization and improved ecosystem stewardship at a planetary scale. The carbon released through the burning of fossil fuels would take millennia to regenerate on Earth. Though the timeframe of carbon recovery for ecosystems such as peatlands, mangroves and old-growth forests is shorter (centuries), this timeframe still exceeds the time we have remaining to avoid the worst impacts of global warming. There are some natural places that we cannot afford to lose due to their irreplaceable carbon reserves. Here we map ‘irrecoverable carbon’ globally to identify ecosystem carbon that remains within human purview to manage and, if lost, could not be recovered by mid-century, by when we need to reach net-zero emissions to avoid the worst climate impacts. Since 2010, agriculture, logging and wildfire have caused emissions of at least 4.0 Gt of irrecoverable carbon. The world’s remaining 139.1 ± 443.6 Gt of irrecoverable carbon faces risks from land-use conversion and climate change. These risks can be reduced through proactive protection and adaptive management. Currently, 23.0% of irrecoverable carbon is within protected areas and 33.6% is managed by Indigenous peoples and local communities. Half of Earth’s irrecoverable carbon is concentrated on just 3.3% of its land, highlighting opportunities for targeted efforts to increase global climate security.

Sustaining the organisms, ecosystems and processes that underpin human wellbeing is necessary to achieve sustainable development. Here we define critical natural assets as the natural and semi-natural ecosystems that provide 90% of the total current magnitude of 14 types of nature’s contributions to people (NCP), and we map the global locations of these critical natural assets at 2 km resolution. Critical natural assets for maintaining local-scale NCP (12 of the 14 NCP) account for 30% of total global land area and 24% of national territorial waters, while 44% of land area is required to also maintain two global-scale NCP (carbon storage and moisture recycling). These areas overlap substantially with cultural diversity (areas containing 96% of global languages) and biodiversity (covering area requirements for 73% of birds and 66% of mammals). At least 87% of the world’s population live in the areas benefitting from critical natural assets for local-scale NCP, while only 16% live on the lands containing these assets. Many of the NCP mapped here are left out of international agreements focused on conserving species or mitigating climate change, yet this analysis shows that explicitly prioritizing critical natural assets and the NCP they provide could simultaneously advance development, climate and conservation goals.

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Wild foods and other nonfood NTFPs are important for improving food security and supplementing incomes in rural peoples' livelihoods. However, studies on the importance of NTFPs to rural communities are often limited to a few select sites and are conducted in areas that are already known to have high rates of NTFP use. To address this, we examined the role of geographic and household level variables in determining whether a household would report collecting wild foods and other nonfood NTFP across 25 agro-ecological landscapes in Tanzania, Rwanda, Uganda and Ghana. The aim of this study was to contribute to the literature on NTFP collection in Africa and to better understand where people depend on these resources by drawing on a broad range of sites that were highly variable in geographic characteristics as well as rates of NTFP collection to provide a better understanding of the determinants of NTFP collection. We found that geographic factors, such as the presence of forests, non-forest natural areas like grasslands and shrublands, and lower population density significantly predict whether a household will report collecting NTFP, and that these factors have greater explanatory power than household characteristics

Sustaining the organisms, ecosystems, and processes that underpin human well-being is necessary to achieve sustainable development. Here we identify critical natural assets, natural and semi-natural ecosystems that provide 90% of the total current magnitude of 14 types of nature’s contributions to people (NCP). Critical natural assets for maintaining local-scale NCP (12 of the 14 NCP mapped) comprise 30% of total global land area and 24% of national territorial waters, while 44% of land area is required for maintaining all NCP (including those that accrue at the global scale, carbon storage and moisture recycling). At least 87% of the world’s population lives in the areas benefiting from critical natural assets for local-scale NCP, while only 16% lives on the lands containing these assets. Critical natural assets also overlap substantially with areas important for biodiversity (covering area requirements for 73% of birds and 66% of mammals) and cultural diversity (representing 96% of global Indigenous and non-migrant languages). Many of the NCP mapped here are left out of international agreements focused on conserving species or mitigating climate change, yet this analysis shows that explicitly prioritizing critical natural assets for NCP could simultaneously advance development, climate, and conservation goals. Crafting policy and investment strategies that protect critical natural assets is essential for sustaining human well-being and securing Earth’s life support systems.