Avoiding an unjust transition to sustainability: An equity metric for spatial conservation planning

Abstract

The need for rapid and ambitious conservation and restoration is widely acknowledged, yet concern exists that the widespread reallocation of land to nature would disproportionately affect the world’s poor. Conservation and restoration may limit nutrition and livelihood options and thus negatively affect social development objectives. Although much research looks into global-scale scenarios and planning of conservation and restoration, spatial evaluations of these trade-offs in terms of equity remain limited. We fill this gap by identifying areas where conservation or restoration under different future scenarios and prioritization maps expand nature into landscapes that likely support land-dependent communities in their local food security. By contrasting the expansion of nature into areas supporting land-dependent communities vs. places where the food system is supported by regional to global markets, we highlight the need for disaggregated indicators that reflect the diversity of human land-use needs in order to identify more equitable pathways. Conservation prioritizations were found to result in more equitable land-use outcomes than the land-use outcomes of widely used socioeconomic scenarios. Accounting for differentiated social impacts in model-based conservation and restoration planning and global scale scenario assessment can help achieve a more inclusive transition to sustainability as well as reduce barriers to meaningful change.

Showcasing advances and building community in modeling for sustainability

“…New metrics are also being developed to analyze the impact of interventions for different actors, with different characteristics, often with a focus on equity. Venier-Cambron et al ( 25 ), in an examination of future scenarios of conservation, present a systematic approach to identify areas of potential tension between global conservation objectives and local food security, evaluating the outcome in terms of equity. They call for the use of multiple indicators, reflecting the diversity of land-use needs, in conservation planning.…”

Futures of conflict risk, migration and equity implications

“…Ethical implications of scenarios are hardly addressed in existing literature (Rivadeneira & Carton, 2022). What is defined as just or equitable is subject to societal and individual assumptions and beliefs, which makes it critically important to be explicit about assumptions and positionalities in assessing these dimensions (Venier-Cambron et al, 2023). Although capturing the full breath of justice and equity implications of scenarios is therefore difficult, the relevance and credibility of measures and ideas deriving from large-scale scenarios can be substantiated when these dimensions are also considered.…”

“…Other more quantitative approaches, as for example presented by Venier-Cambron et al (2023), can complement the findings of chapter 6 by presenting spatial inequities regarding potential tension between global conservation objectives and local food security.…”