Systematic Conservation Planning Research Articles

Global trends in applying decision science in mangrove restoration: are we missing some dimensions?

Mangrove restoration involves complex decision-making processes and can often lack adequate stakeholder engagement and empowerment to inform effective restoration outcomes. Decision science has the potential to overcome such challenges by facilitating structured approaches to make informed, participatory, and defensible decisions through the use of decision-support frameworks and tools. In this paper, we conduct a bibliometric and scoping review of peer-reviewed scientific literature to identify how decision science has been applied to advise mangrove restoration efforts and the extent to which social, economic, and ecological variables have been used to inform these studies. We find a steady increase in the number of mangrove restoration studies that employ decision science from 1990 to 2022, with an annual growth rate of 4.4%. We identified over 300 decision support tools used in mangrove restoration literature. Spatial data was the most documented tool to support mangrove studies. We also find that most papers focused on ecological variables (85.5%), while social (27.2%) and economic (15.1%) variables received less attention. Studies that used decision support frameworks were also sparse, where the most featured framework was Systematic Conservation Planning. The number of studies explicitly incorporating social and economic variables was limited, and there was also a scarcity of studies incorporating variables associated with governance. Regardless of the dominance of ecological variables, this review highlights a shift towards incorporating social dimensions into decision tools, emphasizing concepts like vulnerability to climate change, ecosystem services, and social benefits. Collaboration among countries, scientists, and practitioners is crucial to operationalise a socio-ecological framework within decision science. Enhancing the utility of scientific research for practitioners remains a critical goal in addressing the challenges faced by mangrove restoration projects globally.

Prioritising areas for conservation within Tropical Important Plant Areas of the British Virgin Islands, Caribbean

Oceanic islands are particularly vulnerable to the global decline of biological diversity, suffering disproportionally large losses of endemic species. A primary tool for mitigating species loss is the establishment of protected area networks. The 2030 Global Biodiversity Framework target calls for the protection of 30% of Earth’s land surface by 2030. This study identifies areas within the Tropical Important Plant Areas network of the British Virgin Islands (BVI), to better inform the expansion of the current protected area network with the objective of conserving the BVI’s unique flora. We identified and applied conservation targets for five threatened habitats and 34 species of conservation concern, including four endemic to the BVI. A total of 5,248 georeferenced plant records for the 34 species collected through decades of collaborative work between the National Parks Trust of the Virgin Islands and the Royal Botanical Gardens, Kew, along with the distribution of five threatened habitats were used within the decision support system MARXAN to identify four spatial portfolios to guide the expansion of the BVI’s current protected area network. Highlighting the need to expand the current (2007–2017) Protected Areas System Plan in the BVI, we found that the current Plan only covers 15% of terrestrial land and does not meet the conservation targets for plants and habitats. The portfolios identified in our analysis efficiently expand the current Protected Areas System Plan to strategically expand coverage for all conservation features, with two main portfolios reaching all defined conservation targets for protection. Notably, to evaluate options not requiring land purchase, we extracted areas within state-owned Crown land from two main identified portfolios and found that the two Crown land-portfolios could protect 28% and 23% of the BVI, respectively, while meeting the targets for most plants of conservation concern. However, to reach 30% land protection and meet the conservation targets for all plant species, including endemics, private land would need to be considered for this inclusion within the protected area network. Our results provide science-based guidance for the selection of candidate protected area expansion sites that include threatened plants and habitats for reaching the 2030 Biodiversity Framework targets. While systematic conservation planning can provide guidance on protected area expansion, it is important to evaluate and prioritise conservation actions, based on multiple solutions and available resources. We recommend similar approaches are applied more broadly throughout the Caribbean and other archipelagos across the world.

Anassessment of the state of conservation planning in Europe.

Expanding and managing current habitat and species protection measures is at the heart of the European biodiversity strategy. A structured approachis needed to gain insights into such issues is systematic conservation planning, which uses techniques from decision theory to identify places and actions that contribute most effectively to policy objectives given a set of constraints. Yet culturally and historically determined European landscapes make the implementation of any conservation plans challenging, requiring an analysis of synergies and trade-offs before implementation. In this work, we review the scientific literature for evidence of previous conservation planning approaches, highlighting recent advances and success stories. We find that the conceptual characteristics of European conservation planning studies likely reduced their potential in contributing to better-informed decisions. We outline pathways towards improving the uptake of decision theory and multi-criteria conservation planning at various scales, particularly highlighting the need for (a) open data and intuitive tools, (b) the integration of biodiversity-focused conservation planning with multiple objectives, (c)accounting of dynamic ecological processes and functions, and (d)better facilitation of entry-points and co-design practices of conservation planning scenarios with stakeholders. By adopting and improving these practices, European conservation planning might become more actionable and adaptable towards implementable policy outcomes. This article is part of the theme issue 'Ecological novelty and planetary stewardship: biodiversity dynamics in a transforming biosphere'.

Extinction risk predictions for the world's flowering plants to support their conservation.

More than 70% of all vascular plants lack conservation status assessments. We aimed to address this shortfall in knowledge of species extinction risk by using the World Checklist of Vascular Plants to generate the first comprehensive set of predictions for a large clade: angiosperms (flowering plants, c. 330 000 species). We used Bayesian Additive Regression Trees (BART) to predict the extinction risk of all angiosperms using predictors relating to range size, human footprint, climate, and evolutionary history and applied a novel approach to estimate uncertainty of individual species-level predictions. From our model predictions, we estimate 45.1% of angiosperm species are potentially threatened with a lower bound of 44.5% and upper bound of 45.7%. Our species-level predictions, with associated uncertainty estimates, do not replace full global, or regional Red List assessments, but can be used to prioritise predicted threatened species for full Red List assessment and fast-track predicted non-threatened species for Least Concern assessments. Our predictions and uncertainty estimates can also guide fieldwork, inform systematic conservation planning and support global plant conservation efforts and targets.

Multi‐criteria systematic conservation planning for terrestrial vertebrates in a biodiversity hotspot in Mexico

AbstractAnthropogenic loss of biodiversity continues to increase worldwide, and existing conservation area networks (CANs) are inadequate for its adequate representation and persistence. To identify a set of new nominal conservation areas in Oaxaca, a Mesoamerican biodiversity hotspot in Mexico, for terrestrial vertebrate species, we used a multi‐criteria systematic conservation planning approach. Besides minimizing the area incorporated into the nominal CAN, we incorporated 25 socioeconomic variables using multi‐attribute value theory. We constructed a portfolio of nominal CAN solutions for four different scenarios all of which satisfied a 10% representation target for the modeled suitable habitat of each vertebrate species: (1) existing protected area‐based (PA) solution; (2) voluntary conservation area‐based (VCA) solution; (3) PA‐VCA solution; and (4) R‐C solution (rarity‐complementary algorithm). The PA‐VCA and PA solutions were the most expensive in terms of area that had to be included in the nominal CANs (13,352 km2 and 12,587 km2, respectively). In all our multi‐criteria analyses, highest costs were associated with maximizing the number of airports, amount of tourism, and length of available highways in a nominal CAN. We have thus established a portfolio of multi‐criteria solutions to the problem of creating an adequate CAN for the representation of terrestrial vertebrate species.

Conservation biogeography and diversity of tarantulas in Argentina

Abstract The loss of biodiversity due to the effects of a number of human activities is a cause for great concern. Protected areas are currently one of the main conservation tools worldwide and their correct selection and design play a key role. Since 2000, there have been protocols for systematic conservation planning, which emphasize the identification of priority conservation areas (PCAs) to ensure the persistence of species habitats and the environmental processes associated with them. Spiders of the family Theraphosidae (tarantulas) have biological characteristics that make them vulnerable to fragmentation in time and space and also are underrepresented in current conservation efforts. The geographical distribution of endemic species, such as tarantulas, represents a historical and ecological footprint of all biological entities; therefore, such endemic areas are recognized as priority areas for biodiversity conservation plans. The present work aims to develop an integrative biogeographical approach to conservation through the evaluation of multispecies distribution patterns, and the study of species richness and areas of endemism of tarantulas in Argentina with the ultimate goal of assessing their relationship to existing protected areas and proposing PCAs.

Systematic nature positive markets.

Environmental markets are a rapidly emerging tool to mobilize private funding to incentivize landholders to undertake more sustainable land management. How units of biodiversity in these markets are measured and subsequently traded creates key challenges ecologically and economically because it determines whether environmental markets can deliver net gains in biodiversity and efficiently lower the costs of conservation. We developed and tested a metric for such markets based on the well-established principle of irreplaceability from systematic conservation planning. Irreplaceability as a metric avoids the limitations of like-for-like trading and allows one to capture the multidimensional nature of ecosystems (e.g., habitats, species, ecosystem functioning) and simultaneously achieve cost-effective, land-manager-led investments in conservation. Using an integrated ecological modeling approach, we tested whether using irreplaceability as a metric is more ecologically and economically beneficial than the simpler biodiversity offset metrics typically used in net gain and no-net-loss policies. Using irreplaceability ensured no net loss, or even net gain, of biodiversity depending on the targets chosen. Other metrics did not provide the same assurances and, depending on the flexibility with which biodiversity targets can be achieved, and how they overlap with development pressure, were less efficient. Irreplaceability reduced the costs of offsetting to developers and the costs of ecological restoration to society. Integrating economic data and systematic conservation planning approaches would therefore assure land managers they were being fairly rewarded for the opportunity costs of conservation and transparently incentivize the most ecologically and economically efficient investments in nature recovery.

Groundtruthing cumulative impact assessments with biodiversity data: Testing indicators and methods for marine ecosystem condition assessments in South Africa

Abstract Accurate assessments of ecosystem condition are needed to inform management processes such as systematic conservation planning and protected area expansion, marine spatial planning and other effective area‐based conservation measures. Yet measuring the condition of dynamic and often largely inaccessible marine ecosystems is extremely difficult and presents a global challenge. Broad‐scale cumulative impact assessments have been used in South Africa as a proxy for marine ecosystem condition in national assessments and reporting because the data are more readily available, and knowledge exists on the impacts of various human activities (or pressures) on marine ecosystems. While useful for national reporting, assessments based on in situ ecological data are also needed at finer scales relevant to management. Applying the HELCOM BEAT approach, this study used in situ ecological data to identify potential methods and indicators that can be applied in South Africa to conduct integrated ecosystem assessments and to assess the suitability of current cumulative impact assessments as a proxy for condition. Aggregated fish indicators demonstrated greater sensitivity to varying human pressures compared with benthic community indicators, with responsiveness differing by location. Notably, site‐level differences in empirical condition emerged that broad‐scale cumulative assessments often missed. The study thus highlighted the varying suitability of cumulative impact scores as proxies for condition, indicating their reliability for fish communities. However, this is also dependent on the pressure types included, the biotic indicators used and the area of focus. Conservation decisions based solely on cumulative impact scores could misrepresent the actual condition of the environment, which makes it difficult to make management decisions, especially at finer scales. As such, conservation initiatives need to be regionally adapted to effectively address the unique pressures and conditions of each area and should be tailored to account for fine‐scale variability, instead of adopting a one‐size‐fits‐all approach.

A review of conservation status of freshwater fish diversity in China.

China harbors a high species diversity of freshwater fishes not shared with any of its neighboring nations. Freshwater fish diversity in the country has been under severe threat from human activities over the past decades, thus conservation freshwater fishes and ecosystems is urgently needed. To accumulate baseline data for guiding protection actions, the third red list assessment of Chinese freshwater fishes was carried out. Among Chinese freshwater fishes assessed, there are 355 at-risk species (22.3% of the total), including 69 ranked as Critically Endangered, 97 as Endangered, and 189 as Vulnerable. Two species are classified as Extinct and one as Regionally Extinct. China's threat level seems to be lower than the known average level found in the IUCN's global assessment of freshwater fishes, but this is an artifact of a high rate of species classified as Data Deficient. Conservation of freshwater fishes is presently facing a grim situation in China. Imperilment of Chinese freshwater fishes is primarily attributed to habitat loss and degradation arising from human perturbations, particularly river damming. Despite the adoption of protected areas setting up, captive breeding and release, and a fishing moratorium, conservation efforts for freshwater fishes are compromised by disproportional attention in China's biodiversity conservation, baseline data deficiency, insufficiently designed protection networks, and inefficient or inadequate implementation of conservation strategies. To achieve the objectives of Chinese freshwater fish conservation, it is proposed to conduct a national-scale survey of fish diversity and reassess their at-risk status, develop systematic conservation planning of freshwater fish diversity and ecosystems, prioritize strategies for protected areas development, perform genetic-based captive breeding for releasing in concert with other protection actions, and implement flexible fishing moratorium strategies in different water bodies.

Systematic conservation planning for Antarctic research stations

The small ice-free areas of Antarctica are essential locations for both biodiversity and scientific research but are subject to considerable and expanding human impacts, resulting primarily from station-based research and support activities, and local tourism. Awareness by operators of the need to conserve natural values in and around station and visitor site footprints exists, but the cumulative nature of impacts often results in reactive rather than proactive management. With human activity spread across many isolated pockets of ice-free ground, the pathway to the greatest reduction of human impacts within this natural reserve is through better management of these areas, which are impacted the most. Using a case study of Australia's Casey Station, we found significant natural values persist within the immediate proximity (<10 m) of long-term station infrastructure, but encroachment by physical disturbance results in ongoing pressures. Active planning to better conserve such values would provide a direct opportunity to enhance protection of Antarctica's environment. Here we introduce an approach to systematic conservation planning, tailored to Antarctic research stations, to help managers improve the conservation of values surrounding their activity locations. Use of this approach provides a potential mechanism to balance the need for scientific access to the continent with international obligations to protect its environment. It may also facilitate the development of subordinate conservation tools, including management plans and natural capital accounting. By proactively minimising and containing their station footprints, national programs can also independently demonstrate their commitment to protecting Antarctica's environment.

Social media data for biodiversity conservation

Systematic conservation planning is considered best practice for identifying priority areas, but applications remain limited where biodiversity data are insufficient. In a recent article, Chowdhury et al. tap into citizen scientists via Facebook to address this gap in Bangladesh. Here, I discuss the importance of their demonstrated pipeline, from data acquisition to conservation prioritisation.

Mapping rewilding potential – A systematic approach to prioritise areas for rewilding in human-dominated regions

Meeting national and international biodiversity targets requires strategies supported by systematic planning, as this enables and supports decision-makers in selecting actions and designating funds. As rewilding is part of the solution in delivering restoration targets, land managers, policy makers and funding organisations require transparent tools for prioritisation of where to set aside land for rewilding. However, rewilding has not been integrated well into the target focused systematic conservation planning (SCP) discipline, because rewilding is an open-ended process-led approach with less measurable targets. Developing an SCP approach to rewilding would allow to improve land allocation to rewilding. Therefore, we need a qualifying framework, which will enable systematic rewilding planning at national level. We developed a systematic rewilding priotisation framework to fill this gap. Using measurable indicators of abiotic and biotic variation, the framework enables ranking site potential to develop self-regulating ecosystems. We applied this framework across Denmark and produced prioritised lists of sites, which were then used as a tool in the political process of designating 15 rewilding sites across Denmark. This study illustrates how to apply a systematic prioritising framework at national level, supporting the delivery of national and international biodiversity strategies.

Increasing Brazilian protected areas network is vital in a changing climate

Protected areas (PAs) are a cornerstone strategy for conserving biodiversity, but species' range shifts and contractions in response to climate change hinder their effectiveness in the near future. There have been conflicting reports in the literature as to the extent that this is likely to be a problem. Here we used a meta-analytical approach to investigate the issue using Brazil as a case study. Brazil has continental dimensions and extraordinary biodiversity, a large PA system, and solid research on the impact of climate change on biodiversity. From 56 articles assessing the impacts of climate change on PAs, we compiled 342 measures of risk projection, mostly of changes in species' ranges. >70 % of the risk projections point to negative impacts, due to species moving out of PAs. Thus, the current Brazilian PA network is not robust against climate change. The PAs in the Amazon are predicted to be the most impacted and indigenous lands are particularly at risk, followed by PAs in the Cerrado savannas and the Atlantic Forest. Thus, the Brazilian PA system needs to be expanded, explicitly incorporating climate change in systematic conservation planning, to incorporate underrepresented species and regions in order to make the system more robust.

An integrated methodological framework for the durable conservation of freshwater ecosystems: a case study in Colombia’s Caquetá River basin

Introduction: Although freshwater ecosystems encompass 12% of all known species, their study has achieved less progress in systematic conservation planning exercises compared with terrestrial and marine ecosystems. Moreover, little attention has been given to ecosystem services and cultural and spiritual values, which are pivotal in the long-term preservation of freshwater ecosystems. Conservation, restoration, and sustainable management actions within freshwater systems are currently addressed individually, underscoring the necessity of comprehensive methodological frameworks that holistically address the questions of where and how to conserve while integrating ecosystem services and cultural factors as conservation values.Methods: We propose a new methodological framework for the conservation of freshwater ecosystems that incorporates these elements and fulfills six prioritization criteria: 1) representativeness, 2) integrity, 3) importance, 4) rarity, 5) complementarity, and 6) connectivity. To illustrate the application of this approach, we conducted a regional study in the Caquetá River basin in Colombia.Results: By applying our methodological framework, we demonstrated that the Caquetá River basin hosts 518 distinct freshwater groups with unique characteristics that contribute to the maintenance of ecosystems and the preservation of their inherent values. Additionally, our analysis revealed that protection is the most effective conservation strategy for 77.4% of the Caquetá River basin, whereas restoration and sustainable management are suitable for 4.7% and 17.9% of the basin, respectively. The prioritized portfolio for the Caquetá River basin encompasses 80.1% of all freshwater groups, effectively meeting The Nature Conservancy’s proposed conservation objectives.Conclusion: This novel methodological framework provides a pragmatic approach to systematic conservation planning and answers the questions of both where and how to conserve.

Shedding light on dark taxa in sky‐island Appalachian leaf litter: Assessing patterns of endemicity using large‐scale, voucher‐based barcoding

Abstract Developing systematic conservation plans depends on a wealth of information on a region's biodiversity. For ‘dark taxa' such as arthropods, such data are usually very incomplete and in most cases left out from assessments. Sky islands are important and often fragile biodiversity hotspots. Southern Appalachian high‐elevation spruce–fir forests represent a particularly threatened sky‐island ecosystem, hosting numerous endemic and threatened species, but their arthropods remain understudied. Here we use voucher‐based megabarcoding to explore genetic differentiation among leaf‐litter arthropod communities of these highlands, and to examine the extent to which they represent dispersed communities of more or less coherent species, manageable as a distributed unit. We assembled a dataset comprising more than 6000 COI sequences representing diverse arthropod groups to assess species richness and sharing across peaks and ranges. Comparisons were standardised across taxa using automated species delimitation, measuring endemism levels by putative species. Species richness was high, with sites hosting from 86 to 199 litter arthropod species (not including mites or myriapods). Community profiles suggest that around one fourth of these species are unique to single sky islands and more than one third of all species are limited to a particular range. Across major taxa, endemicity was lowest in Araneae, and highest in neglected groups like Isopoda, Pseudoscorpionida, Protura and Diplura. Southern Appalachian sky islands of spruce–fir habitat host significantly distinct leaf‐litter arthropod communities, with high levels of local endemicity. This is the first work to provide such a clear picture of peak and range uniqueness for a taxonomically broad sample. Ensuring the protection of a sizeable fraction of high‐elevation litter species richness will therefore require attention at a relatively fine spatial scale.

Community-level differentiation of Grime's CSR strategies along a post-abandonment secondary successional gradient

Understanding the ecological processes and the mechanisms of community assembly during secondary succession of vegetation has been a central topic of ecological research. In the last decades, it has also been rendered as a necessity for wildlife management due to the ongoing vegetation succession caused by land abandonment in many parts of the world. Here, we investigated the taxonomic and life strategies diversity patterns among vegetation communities representing a large part of a natural succession gradient, in a (sub-) mountainous area of northwestern Greece (northern Pindus). Sampling of grassland and forest vegetation plots was conducted across an area submitted to high levels of land abandonment during the last 70 years, accompanied with sampling of new functional trait data. The Grime's CSR model of plant strategies was employed to investigate functional diversity of communities, while climatic, edaphic and topographic factors were employed to identify potential drivers of alternative life strategies diversity. Additionally, alpha and beta taxonomic and life strategies diversity of communities were calculated. Variation partitioning analyses attributed functional and taxonomic differentiation of communities mainly to the legacy of land use cover. Overall, grasslands and forests were functionally differentiated, with forest communities having higher levels of the competitive strategy, and grasslands having higher levels of the ruderal strategy. Nevertheless, parallel trends of occurrence of plant life strategies were found for both grasslands and forests. Community level competitive and stress-tolerating plant life strategies were found to be strongly and negatively correlated with soil organic content, soil nitrogen, soil pH and slope, while ruderalism was largely related to the disturbance regime of each community. The derived information of functional strategies diversity can provide valuable data that can guide management actions and contribute to the optimization of systematic conservation planning in such high nature value and threatened ecosystems.

Costs and benefits of protecting linear landscape elements: Applying systematic conservation planning on a case study in the Netherlands

Protecting and increasing linear landscape elements (LLEs) in agricultural lands is regarded as a possible solution for a transition to a more biodiverse agricultural system. However, optimizing the spatial configuration of LLEs protected areas is challenging, especially given the demand for land for food production. Systematic Conservation Planning (SCP) can address this challenge, by prioritizing cost-efficient protection areas. We used a SCP approach to look at the LLEs network in the Province of Noord-Brabant in the Netherlands, identifying the possible trade-off between optimizing species conservation, costs and the monetary values of ecosystem services (ES). For this we defined two scenarios. One scenario focuses on achieving species conservation targets at the minimum cost, and the other focuses on achieving targets while maximizing the benefits provided by ES. For each scenario, we further developed two land-management options, namely land-sharing and land-sparing. For each solution, we tested their cost-effectiveness by calculating implementation costs, economic benefits provided by ES, and cost/benefit ratios. First, our scenario analysis indicates that the economic benefits provided by ES always outweigh the implementation costs. Second, it shows that including ES as co-benefits in SCP (Maximize ES Scenario) yields more cost-efficient conservation solutions. Third, both land-sharing and land-sparing are possible cost-efficient approaches to achieve conservation targets. Our results are spatially explicit and identify crucial habitat areas for the conservation of the selected species, which represent 12–20% of the current unprotected network of LLEs. Our findings showcase net economic benefit of conserving species and LLEs, thus representing an additional reason for biodiversity conservation.

Urban bird diversity conservation plan based on the systematic conservation planning approach - A case study of Beijing Ecological Cultivation Area

In China, especially in countries with state-owned land use rights, the loss of urban bird diversity due to rapid urbanisation can't be contained or ameliorated by equitably weighing the ecological and economic values of land. Climate change could further threaten urban bird biodiversity and ultimately lead to a “tragedy of the commons”. The Beijing Ecological Cultivation Area (BECA) is one such area that has suffered from low eco-efficiency due to climate change and chaotic management. There is a need to find more effective solutions for urban bird conservation to reduce the negative impacts of rapid urbanisation while avoiding wasting more conservation costs. For this purpose, the protection priorities for BECA based on 4 global future climate models (RCP2.6, RCP4.5, RCP6.0 and RCP8.5) for the years 2041–2060, 56 species of local resident birds in the “Beijing Terrestrial Wildlife - Birds” were used as study subjects, which were identified through systematic conservation planning (scp) with combinatorial modelling (MaxEnt-Marxan). In addition, three scenarios were innovatively developed in Marxan with maximum respect for the original land use types. The eco-efficiency and eco-corridor of these three scenarios were compared and identified through ArcGis. The results of the survey show that 'Comprehensive Conservation' has the largest mean distribution area, with the results for RCP 2.6–8.5 being: 52.34%; 65.25%; 48.34%; and 45.42%. It had the highest spatial continuity, the lowest fragmentation, and the highest conservation efficiency. Moreover, We recommend a phased implementation of the conservation plans and and suggest planning options for three landform types: High-altitude mountain; Medium or Low-altitude shallow mountainous; and Water conservation areas. It is important to establish ecological corridors from the Huairou district’s northern part to the Yanqing district’s northeastern part and beyond. This paper quantifies the land costs, ecological values and human impact factors of the planning area in a comprehensive climate context with the theme of conserving urban bird diversity. This study aims to maximise the conservation benefits of urban bird diversity and to provide basic research for ecological conservation on state-owned land.

Prioritising multiple objectives in marine spatial planning for Aotearoa New Zealand

Aotearoa (New Zealand) is a global hotspot of marine biodiversity and has a productive commercial fishing industry. Despite the importance of sustainably managing biodiversity to support fisheries, less than 1% of Aotearoa's Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) is protected in marine reserves, and Benthic Protection Areas, which cover 28% of the EEZ, are inefficiently placed, providing limited biodiversity and fisheries benefits. Here, we provide a spatial analysis of the Aotearoa EEZ, determining optimal areas that balance marine conservation with the minimal displacement of fishing. We define the minimum length of a big old fat fecund female fish (BOFFFF) for three commercially important exploited species, and use boosted regression trees to determine areas of high reproductive potential. Model results were then used to incorporate reproductive potential into systematic conservation planning. We used the decision-support software Zonation to consider the distribution of threatened species hotspots, biodiversity, and BOFFFFs against fishing catch (all commercially exploited species) and high-value fisheries (10 commercially exploited species) to determine priority areas for marine protection. Results showed that threatened species, biodiversity, and areas with high reproductive potential could be conserved with little impact on fishing catch (86% maintained) and value (87% maintained), though high-value fisheries were found to have greater overlap with biodiversity. Our research indicates that trade-offs with fisheries need not impede the designation of protected areas required to achieve conservation and fisheries sustainability goals.

A framework for identifying multiscenario priorities based on SCP theory to promote the implementation of municipal territorial ecological conservation planning policy in China

Currently, research on the methodological framework for identifying conservation priority areas in China's territorial ecological conservation planning pays limited attention to the plan's implementability. Therefore, in this study, we developed a new prioritization framework for planning implementation based on systematic conservation planning (SCP) theory, which not only incorporated multiple types of key indicators for conservation prioritization assessment but also provided managers with differentiated decision-making scenarios, including the use of the Integrated Valuation of Ecosystem Services and Trade-offs (InVEST) model, the Marxan model, and the Zonation model. We applied the framework in Xi'an, a megacity in northwest China. To evaluate the effectiveness of the new framework, a comparison was made between two scenarios: the systematic conservation planning scenarios (SCPs) based on the new framework and the ecologically important scenarios (EIs) based on the previous main methodology (which integrates the level of ecosystem service provision and ecological vulnerability). Under SCPs and EIs, the areas of conservation priority are 2,118.35 km2 and 4,447.15 km2, respectively, and SCPs gained slightly fewer conservation benefits than EIs but caused less loss of economic benefits in terms of GDP (27.8884 million yuan and 494.3732 million yuan for SCPs and EIs, respectively). This shows that the new framework can help minimize conservation costs while satisfying each conservation benefit as much as possible compared to previous approaches, thus contributing to the implementability of the plan. In future works, the application scenarios of the multiscenario prioritization framework based on SCP theory can be further expanded, and flexible solutions can be provided for the implementation of landscape planning in similar areas facing urgent conservation needs.