Systematic conservation planning for nature recovery.

Abstract

Nature conservation is increasingly focused on recovering depleted populations and ecosystems. The United Nations General Assembly has proclaimed 2021-2030 the UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration, and global commitments to ecosystem restoration in response to biodiversity, climate, and sustainable development targets are now considerable, with over 100 nations committed to halting and reversing forest loss and land degradation by 2030. The impacts of these resources on nature recovery will depend on how actions are identified and implemented. Systematic conservation planning has historically been used to prioritize areas for protection but has shown great potential to guide nature recovery actions that are underpinned by principles of spatial conservation planning. In the present article, we advocate for systematic conservation planning to target resources for nature recovery and show how well-established systematic conservation planning frameworks can be developed appropriately, particularly by integrating models for forecasting ecological, social, and economic conditions with spatial prioritization methods designed to target nature recovery resources.