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The minimum land area requiring conservation attention to safeguard biodiversity
Ending biodiversity loss
Land conversion is one of the biggest threats to biodiversity in the modern world. In two related papers, the amount of unconverted land and the degree of connectivity among landscapes were measured, painting a clear picture of both what needs to be protected and the urgency of this task (see the Perspective by McGuire and Shipley). Allan et al. found that 44% of terrestrial land must be ecologically sound to prevent major biodiversity losses. Brennan et al. found that the most important connectivity routes among protected areas remain threatened by conversion. In both cases, the authors emphasize that much of the needed area is occupied by human populations, emphasizing the importance of improving sustainable cohabitation and ecosystem protection in these regions. —SNV
Abstract
Ambitious conservation efforts are needed to stop the global biodiversity crisis. In this study, we estimate the minimum land area to secure important biodiversity areas, ecologically intact areas, and optimal locations for representation of species ranges and ecoregions. We discover that at least 64 million square kilometers (44% of terrestrial area) would require conservation attention (ranging from protected areas to land-use policies) to meet this goal. More than 1.8 billion people live on these lands, so responses that promote autonomy, self-determination, equity, and sustainable management for safeguarding biodiversity are essential. Spatially explicit land-use scenarios suggest that 1.3 million square kilometers of this land is at risk of being converted for intensive human land uses by 2030, which requires immediate attention. However, a sevenfold difference exists between the amount of habitat converted in optimistic and pessimistic land-use scenarios, highlighting an opportunity to avert this crisis. Appropriate targets in the Post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework to encourage conservation of the identified land would contribute substantially to safeguarding biodiversity.
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Science
Volume 376 | Issue 6597
3 June 2022
3 June 2022
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Copyright © 2022 The Authors, some rights reserved; exclusive licensee American Association for the Advancement of Science. No claim to original U.S. Government Works.
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Received: 13 August 2021
Accepted: 11 April 2022
Published in print: 3 June 2022
Acknowledgments
We thank P. Brehony, P. Tyrell, O. Venter, and P. Visconti for thoughtful comments on the manuscript.
Funding: M.D.M. acknowledges support from the MUR Rita Levi Montalcini program. W.D.K. acknowledges a University of Amsterdam (UvA) starting grant and financial support from the UvA Faculty Research Cluster “Global Ecology.” J.R.A. acknowledges support from Koobi Carbon.
Author contributions: J.R.A., T.W., S.C.A., J.E.M.W., and H.P.P. framed the study. J.R.A., S.C.A., M.D.M., G.G., and P.M. performed the analyses. J.R.A., H.P.P., S.C.A., A.W., M.D.M., S.H.M.B., V.M.A., W.D.K., T.W., C.S., G.G., K.K., P.M., M.M., B.A.Wil., K.R.J., B.A.Win., A.E.R., and J.E.M.W. discussed and interpreted the results and helped write the manuscript. J.R.A. wrote the manuscript with support from all authors.
Competing interests: The authors declare no financial competing interests. The authors who work for the Wildlife Conservation Society acknowledge that wilderness conservation is part of their organization’s agenda. Similarly, the authors from BirdLife International acknowledge that Key Biodiversity Areas are part of their organizational agenda.
Data and materials availability: All data developed in this paper (the spatial scenarios) are freely available at Dryad (83). All other data needed to evaluate the conclusions in the paper are present in the paper or the supplementary materials.
License information: Copyright © 2022 the authors, some rights reserved; exclusive licensee American Association for the Advancement of Science. No claim to original US government works. https://www.science.org/about/science-licenses-journal-article-reuse
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