Multi-taxa spatial conservation planning reveals similar priorities between taxa and improved protected area representation with climate change

Protected area (PA) networks have in the past been constructed to include all major habitats, but have often been developed through consideration of only a few indicator taxa or across restricted areas, and rarely account for global climate change. Systematic conservation planning (SCP) aims to improve the efficiency of biodiversity conservation, particularly when addressing internationally agreed protection targets. We apply SCP in Great Britain (GB) using the widest taxonomic coverage to date (4,447 species), compare spatial prioritisation results across 18 taxa and use projected future (2080) distributions to assess the potential impact of climate change on PA network effectiveness. Priority conservation areas were similar among multiple taxa, despite considerable differences in spatial species richness patterns; thus systematic prioritisations based on indicator taxa for which data are widely available are still useful for conservation planning. We found that increasing the number of protected hectads by 2% (to reach the 2020 17% Aichi target) could have a disproportionate positive effect on species protected, with an increase of up to 17% for some taxa. The PA network in GB currently under-represents priority species but, if the potential future distributions under climate change are realised, the proportion of species distributions protected by the current PA network may increase, because many PAs are in northern and higher altitude areas. Optimal locations for new PAs are particularly concentrated in southern and upland areas of GB. This application of SCP shows how a small addition to an existing PA network could have disproportionate benefits for species conservation.

Operations Research and Cost-Effective Spatial Conservation Planning: Data, Models, Tools and Future Directions

Biodiversity conservation questions human practices towards biodiversity and, therefore, largely conflicts with ordinary societal aspirations. Decisions on the location of protected areas, one of the most convincing conservation tools, reflect such a competitive endeavor. Operations Research (OR) brings a set of analytical models and tools capable of resolving the conflicting interests between ecology and economy. Recent technological advances have boosted the size and variety of data available to planners, thus challenging conventional approaches bounded on optimized solutions. New models and methods are requested to use such a massive amount of data in integrative schemes addressing a large variety of concerns. Here, we provide an overview on the past, present and future challenges that characterize spatial conservation models supported by OR. By enlarging the spatial, temporal, taxonomic and societal horizons of biodiversity conservation planners navigate around multiple bio-socioeconomic equilibria and are able to decide on cost-effective strategies to improve biodiversity persistence.

Spatial Conservation Prioritisation as Part of a General Land Use Planning Process

CONTEXT. Land use decisions are essential for reaching of biodiversity conservation targets. Usually, conservation is planned separately from other land use, using specialised approaches such as spatial conservation planning and prioritisation (SCP). This separation of processes makes it difficult to optimise between competing land uses or to plan for land sharing solutions. OBJECTIVES: We present a real-life planning case where SCP was integrated to regional planning process from early on. The aim is (i) to present the process and its results, and (ii) based on the experiences, to evaluate and discuss the potential and challenges of integrating SCP to a general land use planning. METHODS: We present the regional planning of the Helsinki-Uusimaa region in Finland where SCP was integrated as part of the general land use planning process between 2014 and 2018. We applied Zonation software and a diverse collection of spatial biodiversity data and carry out various spatial prioritizations guided by planners and environmental experts. We compared the priority areas to future plans (Uusmaa 2050). RESULTS: We show high spatial variation of biodiversity in Uusimaa region and SCP is able to highlight sites of high importance for biodiversity aware planning. Roughly 70% of biodiversity is outside protection by the Uusimaa 2050 plan draft.CONCLUSIONS: While SCP is relatively well-known by ecologists and nature conservationists, its concepts, framework, and tools are usually not familiar to general land use planners. Integration of SCP can yield to better decisions, but new practices require sufficient resourcing and tight collaboration between the parties.