Mapping the planet’s critical areas for biodiversity and nature’s contributions to people
Conserving ~50% of land could secure 90% of key ecosystem benefits and protect 26,709 vertebrate species, supporting global biodiversity goals. However, over one-third of these priority areas overlap with land suitable for agriculture, energy, or urban use, highlighting significant tradeoffs among conservation, climate, and development priorities.
Subject Tags
- Biodiversity
- Large scale protection
- Social Sciences
Abstract
Meeting global commitments to conservation, climate, and sustainable development requires consideration of synergies and tradeoffs among targets. We evaluate the spatial congruence of ecosystems providing globally high levels of nature’s contributions to people, biodiversity, and areas with high development potential across several sectors. We find that conserving approximately half of global land area through protection or sustainable management could provide 90% of the current levels of ten of nature’s contributions to people and meet minimum representation targets for 26,709 terrestrial vertebrate species. This finding supports recent commitments by national governments under the Global Biodiversity Framework to conserve at least 30% of global lands and waters, and proposals to conserve half of the Earth. More than one-third of areas required for conserving nature’s contributions to people and species are also highly suitable for agriculture, renewable energy, oil and gas, mining, or urban expansion. This indicates potential conflicts among conservation, climate and development goals.
Citation
Neugarten, R.A., Chaplin-Kramer, R., Sharp, R.P., Schuster, R., Strimas-Mackey, M., Roehrdanz, P.R., Mulligan, M., van Soesbergen, A., Hole, D., Kennedy, C.M. and Oakleaf, J.R., 2024. Mapping the planet’s critical areas for biodiversity and nature’s contributions to people. Nature Communications, 15(1), p.261. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-023-43832-9
TNC Authors
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Christina Kennedy
Global Director of Spatial Conservation Science
The Nature Conservancy
Email: ckennedy@tnc.org -
James Oakleaf
Applied Geoinfomatics Scientist
The Nature Conservancy
Email: joakleaf@tnc.org -
Joe Kiesecker
Lead Scientist, Global Protect
The Nature Conservancy
Email: jkiesecker@tnc.org