Strategic approaches to restoring ecosystems can triple conservation gains and halve costs

Strassburg, Bernardo B. N.; Beyer, Hawthorne L.; Crouzeilles, Renato; Iribarrem, Álvaro; Barros, Felipe S. M.; Siqueira, Marinez Ferreira de; Sánchez‐Tapia, Andrea; Balmford, Andrew; Sansevero, Jerônimo Boelsums Barreto; Brancalion, Pedro Henrique Santin; Broadbent, Eben N.; Chazdon, Robin L.; Filho, Ary Oliveira; Gardner, Toby A.; Gordon, Ascelin; Latawiec, Agnieszka E.; Loyola, Rafael; Metzger, Jean Paul; Mills, Morena; Possingham, Hugh P.; Rodrigues, Ricardo Ribeiro; Scaramuzza, Carlos Alberto de Mattos; Scarano, Fábio Rúbio; Tambosi, Leandro Reverberi; Uriarte, María

doi:10.1038/s41559-018-0743-8

Cited by 242 publications

(196 citation statements)

References 43 publications

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“…We use range maps for these 145 species to determine which species benefited from conservation within each planning unit. Species benefit, summed across all species following Strassburg et al (2019), is quantified as local extinction risk, which is based on the ratio of the remaining and original habitat area for each species within the study area (sensu Thomas et al 2004, Strassburg et al 2019SM 1.3).…”

Section: Framing the Decision Support Problemmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…When a landscape that is largely ecologically intact is being 'opened up' for development, strategic, proactive planning is needed to identify opportunities for enhanced outcomes for both environmental and agricultural goals (Forman and Collinge 1997). Systematic planning can help guide complex land-use decisions by fostering stakeholder engagement, improving the efficiency of land use allocation, describing the tradeoffs between biodiversity and economic objectives thereby identifying compromise solutions and, identifying management opportunities and strategies that can improve biodiversity outcomes in production landscapes (Polasky et al 2008, Runting et al 2015, Adams et al 2016, Estes et al 2016, Runting et al 2019, Strassburg et al 2019. However, to date, these efforts typically have been conducted in transformed (i.e.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Minimising the loss of biodiversity and ecosystem services in an intact landscape under risk of rapid agricultural development

Williams

Grantham

Watson

et al. 2020

Environ. Res. Lett.

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As humanity's demand for resources continues to rise and productive arable lands become increasingly scarce, many of Earth's remaining intact regions are at heightened risk of destruction from agricultural development. In situations where agricultural expansion is inevitable, it is important to manage intact landscape transformation so that impacts on environmental values are minimised. Here, we present a novel, spatially explicit, land use planning framework that addresses the decision making needed to account for different, competing economic-environment objectives (agricultural production value, biodiversity conservation, ecosystem service retention) when land use change is inevitable within an intact landscape. We apply our framework to the globally significant savannahs of the Orinoquia (Colombia), which in a post-conflict era is under increased agricultural development pressure. We show that while negative environmental impacts can be reduced through planning, the total area of land converted to agriculture is the unavoidable principal driver of biodiversity and ecosystem service loss. We therefore identify planning solutions that perform well across all objectives simultaneously, despite trade-offs among them. When 15%, 20%, 30% and 40% of the study area is allowed to be converted to agriculture, on average planning can improve species persistence and ecosystem service retention by up to 16%, 15%, 12%, and 9%, respectively, when compared to agricultural-focused solutions. Development in the region so far has had an unnecessarily large impact on environmental objectives due to a lack of effective land use planning, creating an 'opportunity debt'. Our study provides an evidence base to inform proactive planning and the development of environmentally sensible agricultural development policy and practice in the region. This framework can be used by stakeholders to achieve agriculture expansion goals and maximise economic profit while minimising impacts on the environment in the Orinoquia, or any relatively intact region that is being developed.

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Section: Framing the Decision Support Problemmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Minimising the loss of biodiversity and ecosystem services in an intact landscape under risk of rapid agricultural development

Williams

Grantham

Watson

et al. 2020

Environ. Res. Lett.

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“…In addition, effective management of production forests is needed to sustain yields without further worsening their ecological integrity ( 39 ). More research is required on how to prioritize, manage, and restore forests in low to medium health ( 38, 40 ), and the FHI presented here might prove useful for this, for example, by helping prioritize where the best return on investments are, in combination with other sources of data ( 41 ).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Modification of forests by people means only 40% of remaining forests have high ecosystem integrity

Grantham

Duncan

Evans

et al. 2020

Preprint

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Many global environmental agendas, including halting biodiversity loss, reversing land 45 degradation, and limiting climate change, depend upon retaining forests with high ecological 46 integrity, yet the scale and degree of forest modification remains poorly quantified and mapped. 47 Page 3 of 54By integrating data on direct and indirect forest pressures and lost forest connectivity, we generate 48 the first globally-consistent, continuous index of forest condition as determined by degree of 49 anthropogenic modification, which we term 'forest health'. Globally, only 17.4 million km 2 of 50 forest (40.5%) can be considered in high health (mostly found in Canada, Russia, the Amazon, 51Central Africa and New Guinea) and only 27% of this area is found in nationally-designated 52 protected areas. Of all the world's forests found within protected areas, only 56% can be 53 considered in high health. Ambitious policies that prioritize the retention of forest health are now 54 urgently needed alongside current efforts aimed at restoring the health of forests globally. 55 56 MAIN TEXT 57 58 65bodies (e.g. 5), and it is now essential that the scientific community develop improved tools and 66 data to facilitate the consideration of the degree of forest modification in decision-making. 67Mapping and monitoring this globally will provide essential information for coordinated global, 68 national and local policy-making, planning and action, to help nations and other stakeholders 69 achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and implement other shared commitments 70 such as the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), Convention to Combat Ecosystem integrity is foundational to all three of the Rio Conventions (UNFCCC, UNCCD, 74 CBD ). As defined by Parrish et al. ( 6), it is essentially the degree to which a system is free from 75 anthropogenic modification of its structure, composition and function. Such modification causes 76 the degradation of many ecosystem benefits, and is often also a precursor to outright deforestation 77 (7, 8). Forests largely free of significant forest modification (i.e. forests having high ecosystem 78 integrity), typically provide higher levels of many forest benefits than modified forests of the 79 same type (9), including; carbon sequestration and storage (10), healthy watersheds (11), 80 traditional homelands for imperiled cultures (12), contribution to local and regional climate 81 processes (13), and forest-dependent biodiversity (14-17). Industrial-scale logging, fragmentation 82 by infrastructure, farming (including cropping and ranching) and urbanization, as well as less 83 visible forms of modification such as over-hunting, wood fuel extraction and changed fire or 84 hydrological regimes (18, 19), all degrade the degree to which forests still support these benefits, 85 as well as their long-term resilience to climate change (9). There can be trade-offs however, 86 between the benefits provided by less-modified forests (e.g., carbon sequestration) and those 8...

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“…The selection process can reflect local management issues and concerns (Fig. 2A-C) such as connectivity, expansion of current PAs, areas of lesser HM, political desirability, economic feasibility, carbon sequestration, and greater protection of high-profile species 21 . Minimizing the amount of HM (Fig.…”

Section: Main Textmentioning

confidence: 99%

Multi-scale planning helps resolve global conservation needs with regional priorities

Rinnan

Jetz

2020

Preprint

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10Area-based conservation through reserves or other measures is vital for preserving biodiversity 11 and its functions for future generations 1-5 , but its effective implementation suffers from a lack of 12 both management-level detail 6 and transparency around national responsibilities that might 13 underpin cross-national support mechanisms 7 . Here we implement a conservation prioritization 2,8 14 framework that accounts for spatial data limitations yet offers actionable guidance at a 1km 15 resolution. Our multi-scale linear optimization approach delineates globally the areas required to 16 meet conservation targets for all ~32,000 described terrestrial vertebrate species, while offering 17 flexibility in decision management to meet different local conservation objectives. Roughly 18 48.5% of land is sufficient to meet conservation targets for all species, of which 60.2% is either 19 already protected 9 or has minimal human modification 10 . However, human-modified areas need 20 to be managed or restored in some form to ensure the long-term survival for over half of species. 21 2 This burden of area-based conservation is distributed very unevenly among countries, and, 22 without a process that explicitly addresses geopolitical inequity, requires disproportionately large 23 commitments from poorer countries. Our analyses provide baseline information for a potential 24 intergovernmental and stakeholder contribution mechanism in service of a globally shared goal 25 of sustaining biodiversity. Future updates and extensions to this global priority map have the 26 potential to guide local and national advocacy and actions with a data-driven approach to support 27 global conservation outcomes. 28 29 Main Text: 30 The current extinction crisis threatens biodiversity worldwide, driven primarily by loss of habitat 31 due to human land use 5,11,12 . A decade after the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) 32 created the strategic short-term Aichi Biodiversity Targets designed to promote and protect the 33 planet's biodiversity, negotiations are underway for a post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework 34 that provides an improved set of biodiversity targets for the coming decade and beyond 4,6,13,14 . 35 Key principles shaping the new framework include a grounding in scientific understanding of the 36 planet's biodiversity, a focus on meaningful and measurable biodiversity outcomes, and 37 development of mechanisms that support equitable management between parties 15 . Conservation 38 policy and advocacy frequently features areal percentage targets -such as the 17% of land in 39Biodiversity Target 11 or the more ambitious 30% or 50% under discussion 15 -that have 40 commonly been interpreted at the national or regional level, but generally fail to account for the 41 uneven distribution of global biodiversity 6 . Other current CBD goals, by contrast, emphasize 42 minimizing species extinctions and supporting global biodiversity persistence by enhancing 43 perceptions of biodiversity importance. Thus, a good startin...

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Strategic approaches to restoring ecosystems can triple conservation gains and halve costs

Cited by 242 publications

References 43 publications

Minimising the loss of biodiversity and ecosystem services in an intact landscape under risk of rapid agricultural development

Minimising the loss of biodiversity and ecosystem services in an intact landscape under risk of rapid agricultural development

Modification of forests by people means only 40% of remaining forests have high ecosystem integrity

Multi-scale planning helps resolve global conservation needs with regional priorities

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