Meeting EU biodiversity targets under future land-use demands

Authors:
Preprint
Publisher website
Google Scholar
Abstract
The European Union is committed to achieving ambitious area-based conservation and restoration targets in the upcoming decade. However, there is concern that these targets risk conflicting with socio-economic needs, particularly for food, timber, and bioenergy production. Here, we develop an integrated spatial planning approach to identify where restoration, conservation, and production allocation could maximize benefits to species conservation and climate mitigation, while acknowledging future changing lands demands of the bioeconomy. We show that, while changing production demands risk driving further biodiversity loss by 2030, when these demands are met alongside strategic restoration measures, as outlined by the EU Nature Restoration Regulation (NRR), future landscapes could improve the conservation status of $>$20\% of species of conservation concern while also increasing terrestrial carbon stocks. Our analysis demonstrates how critical the NRR is to achieve biodiversity targets, and how integrated planning can align biodiversity policy objectives with future socio-economic demand.