Curbing habitat loss, reducing fragmentation and restoring connectivity are frequent concerns of conservation planning. In this respect, the incorporation of spatial constraints, fragmentation and connectivity indices into optimization procedures is an important challenge for improving decision support. Here we present a novel optimization approach developed to accurately represent a broad range of conservation planning questions with spatial constraints and landscape indices. Relying on constraint programming, a technique from artificial intelligence based on automatic reasoning, this approach provides both constraint satisfaction and optimality guarantees. We applied this approach in a real case study to support managers of the ‘Côte Oubliée – ‘Woen Vùù – Pwa Pereeù’ provincial park project, in the biodiversity hotspot of New Caledonia. Under budget, accessibility and equitable allocation constraints, we identified restorable areas optimal for reducing forest fragmentation and improving inter‐patch structural connectivity, respectively measured with the effective mesh size and the integral index of connectivity. Synthesis and applications. Our work contributes to more effective and policy‐relevant conservation planning by providing a spatially explicit and problem‐focused optimization approach. By allowing an exact representation of spatial constraints and landscape indices, it can address new questions and ensure whether the solutions will be socio‐economically feasible, through optimality and satisfiability guarantees. Our approach is generic and flexible, thus applicable to a wide range of conservation planning problems, such as ecological restoration planning, reserve or corridor design.

Ecological restoration is essential to curb the decline of biodiversity and ecosystems worldwide. Since the resources available for restoration are limited, restoration efforts must be cost‐effective to achieve conservation outcomes. Although decision support tools are available to aid in the design of protected areas, little progress has been made to provide such tools for restoration efforts. Here, we introduce the restoptr R package, a decision support tool designed to identify priority areas for ecological restoration. It uses constraint programming—an artificial intelligence technique—to identify optimal plans given ecological and socioeconomic constraints. Critically, it can identify strategic locations to enhance connectivity and reduce fragmentation across a broader landscape using complex landscape metrics. We illustrate its usage with a case study in New Caledonia. By applying this tool, we identified priority areas for restoration that could reverse forest fragmentation induced by mining activities in a specific area. We also found that relatively small investments could deliver large returns to restore connectivity. The restoptr R package is a free and open‐source decision support tool available on the Comprehensive R Archive Network (https://cran.r-project.org/package=restoptr).

Faced with natural habitat degradation, fragmentation, and destruction, it is a major challenge for environmental managers to implement sustainable land use policies promoting socioeconomic development and natural habitat conservation in a balanced way. Relying on artificial intelligence and operational research, reserve selection and design models can be of assistance. This paper introduces a partitioning approach based on Constraint Programming (CP) for the reserve selection and design problem, dealing with both coverage and complex spatial constraints. Moreover, it introduces the first CP formulation of the buffer zone constraint, which can be reused to compose more complex spatial constraints. This approach has been evaluated in a real-world dataset addressing the problem of forest fragmentation in New Caledonia, a biodiversity hotspot where managers are gaining interest in integrating these methods into their decisional processes. Through several scenarios, it showed expressiveness, flexibility, and ability to quickly find solutions to complex questions.