Identifying trade-offs between biodiversity conservation and ecosystem services delivery for land-use decisions

Constance Fastré,Hugh P Possingham,Diederik Strubbe,Erik Matthysen

doi:10.1038/s41598-020-64668-z

Abstract

Sustainable land-use management must account for the potential trade-offs between biodiversity conservation, productive land uses and ecosystem services. In this study, we used Marxan with Zones to generate land use plans that optimize conservation, farming and forestry land uses to reach biodiversity targets while minimizing the opportunity cost for local communities in an inhabited but data-poor National Park in the Andes of Bolivia. Based on six alternative land-use plans, we identified the synergies and trade-offs between the biodiversity benefits achieved in the different plans and the delivery of four locally important water-related ecosystem services modeled with the web-based tool AguAAndes. Although we find synergies between the conservation of high altitude Polylepis woodlands and their associated avifauna and three of the ecosystem services investigated, soil erosion levels were actually higher in scenarios with higher achieved biodiversity benefits. Our study shows how systematic conservation planning and ecosystem service delivery modelling can be used to solve land-use conflicts and identify trade-offs between biodiversity conservation and ecosystem services in a data-poor tropical area.

Highlights

Sustainable land-use management must account for the potential trade-offs between biodiversity conservation, productive land uses and ecosystem services
Based on six alternative land-use plans, we identified the synergies and trade-offs between the biodiversity benefits achieved in the different plans and the delivery of four locally important water-related ecosystem services modeled with the web-based tool
Our study shows how systematic conservation planning, in conjunction with online policy support tools such as AguAAndes, can be used to provide information on land use conflicts in data-poor but biodiverse protected areas

Summary

Introduction

Sustainable land-use management must account for the potential trade-offs between biodiversity conservation, productive land uses and ecosystem services. Our study shows how systematic conservation planning and ecosystem service delivery modelling can be used to solve land-use conflicts and identify trade-offs between biodiversity conservation and ecosystem services in a data-poor tropical area. There is an increasing demand, for protected areas to provide additional functions to that of biodiversity conservation, such as supporting the livelihoods of local communities, providing ecosystem services and/or mitigating the effects of climate change[4,5]. This can result in conflicting demands, and trade-offs between biodiversity conservation and ecosystem service delivery or human livelihood support have been reported in a variety of places and situations[6]. To efficiently plan for biodiversity protection and management, potential trade-offs must be identified and acknowledged[4,6,7]

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Results

Conclusion