While the world is a big place,
humans are making greater and greater demands on the same areas of land.
"This means that, unless we use the same land to serve multiple needs and
coordinate this effort through planning, it is unlikely that we will have
enough land for conservation, food and energy," said Grace Wu, a professor
in UC Santa Barbara's Environmental Studies Program.
Strategic planning reveals land tradeoffs
An international team of
researchers looked into the tradeoffs between different land uses, revealing
that strategic planning would enable progress toward global biodiversity,
climate and sustainable development goals simultaneously. The study, published
in Nature Communications, finds that, if an integrated method for land-use
planning is employed, future land development would impact 15% fewer species
and cut carbon loss by 19%.
A framework for multi-sector land use
The study provides a framework for
multi-sector land-use planning that considers the, often overlapping, needs of
nature conservation, agriculture and renewable energy. The paper maps these
needs around the world, finding that the places needed to meet targets for
protected land and productive land frequently intersect.
"There's a tendency to think
that development and conservation inevitably conflict, but that's largely
because we plan in silos," said co-author Patrick Roehrdanz, director of
climate change and biodiversity at Conservation International. "When we
use a multi-sector approach to land allocation across sustainable
development goals, we see that most important areas for nature can be conserved
while still leaving room for development—and importantly, we can also identify
areas where priorities for nature and development do overlap."
Balancing climate, food and biodiversity
Achieving global climate goals
while meeting growing demand for food will likely result in more land devoted
to both renewable energy infrastructure and farming, the researchers said.
However, if we also aim to meet global biodiversity goals, the allocation of
these lands cannot come at the expense of nature.
"Both renewable energy and
natural climate solutions play critical roles in fighting climate change,"
said Roehrdanz. "But clean
energy projects still use land, and if they're built without considering nature, they
can add pressure on wildlife and ecosystems—which undermine the effectiveness
of natural climate solutions as well as biodiversity goals. Our study shows
that better coordination can reduce those conflicts and allow both goals to
succeed."
Consequences of uncoordinated development
According to the study, if future
development is planned without considering nature and the benefits it provides
to humanity, land demands for renewable energy and agriculture could impact
nearly 1 million square kilometers of high-priority
conservation areas, including the habitats of 440 threatened species and 21 gigatons of
needed carbon stocks. It would also result in insufficient land availability to
achieve conservation and development targets. This could be avoided with
proactive and data-informed planning.
If development planning is
coordinated and collaborative, the authors found that impacts on nature can be
significantly reduced. This approach would reduce the potential number of
species displaced by 15% and the amount of carbon lost by 19%.
Why single-sector planning falls short
"Single-sector land use
planning such as planning for biodiversity or for development, which is the
standard, is going to lead to worse outcomes and greater conflict,"
explained UCSB co-author Ashley Larsen, a professor at the Environmental Markets
Lab (emLab) in the Bren School of Environmental Science & Management.
Supporting the food and energy development needed in the future while
maintaining biodiversity will require coordination and collaboration.
"While perhaps obvious at a
high level," she said, "we show the magnitude of synergies and
tradeoffs between siloed and coordinated approaches to land management."
Data, local input and global tools
Country-level data, restoration commitments and local and Indigenous
input strengthen this type of multi-sector planning and lower the potential for
carbon or nature loss, according to the study. Alongside local data and
perspectives, the framework is designed to be applicable regionally and
nationally.
"The paper demonstrates a
practical, scalable approach to multi-objective land-use planning," said
lead author Cameryn Brock, a research scientist at Conservation International
at the time of the study. "Our intention is that this framework can be a
useful tool for governments, companies and other decisionmakers."
Real-world applications in Colombia
UCSB and Conservation International have partnered with Arizona State University and the Alexander von Humboldt Institute in Colombia to co-design land use models for Colombia's conservation planning efforts. The team, led by Amy Frazier, a professor in the Department of Geography at UCSB, is working with the country's national parks service to integrate these land-use planning scenarios into a web-based system to identify potential sites for future conservation.
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