Prioritizing actions: spatial action maps for conservation.

Spatial prioritization is a critical step in conservation planning, a process designed to ensure that limited resources are applied in ways that deliver the highest possible returns for biodiversity and human wellbeing. In practice, many spatial prioritizations fall short of their potential by focusing on places rather than actions, and by using data of snapshots of assets or threats rather than estimated impacts. We introduce spatial action mapping as an approach that overcomes these shortfalls. This approach produces a spatially explicit view of where and how much a given conservation action is likely to contribute to achieving stated conservation goals. Through seven case examples, we demonstrate simple to complex versions of how this method can be applied across local to global scales to inform decisions about a wide range of conservation actions and benefits. Spatial action mapping can support major improvements in efficient use of conservation resources and will reach its full potential as the quality of environmental, social, and economic datasets converge and conservation impact evaluations improve.

Expanding the Soy Moratorium to Brazil's Cerrado.

The Cerrado biome in Brazil is a tropical savanna and an important global biodiversity hot spot. Today, only a fraction of its original area remains undisturbed, and this habitat is at risk of conversion to agriculture, especially to soybeans. Here, we present the first quantitative analysis of expanding the Soy Moratorium (SoyM) from the Brazilian Amazon to the Cerrado biome. The SoyM expansion to the Cerrado would prevent the direct conversion of 3.6 million ha of native vegetation to soybeans by 2050. Nationally, this would require a reduction in soybean area of approximately 2%. Relative risk of future native vegetation conversion for soybeans would be driven by the Brazilian domestic market, China, and the European Union. We conclude that, to preserve the Cerrado's biodiversity and ecosystem services, urgent action is required, including a zero native vegetation conversion agreement such as the SoyM.

Bigger is better: Improved nature conservation and economic returns from landscape-level mitigation.

Impact mitigation is a primary mechanism on which countries rely to reduce environmental externalities and balance development with conservation. Mitigation policies are transitioning from traditional project-by-project planning to landscape-level planning. Although this larger-scale approach is expected to provide greater conservation benefits at the lowest cost, empirical justification is still scarce. Using commercial sugarcane expansion in the Brazilian Cerrado as a case study, we apply economic and biophysical steady-state models to quantify the benefits of the Brazilian Forest Code (FC) under landscape- and property-level planning. We find that FC compliance imposes small costs to business but can generate significant long-term benefits to nature: supporting 32 (±37) additional species (largely habitat specialists), storing 593,000 to 2,280,000 additional tons of carbon worth $69 million to $265 million ($ pertains to U.S. dollars), and marginally improving surface water quality. Relative to property-level compliance, we find that landscape-level compliance reduces total business costs by $19 million to $35 million per 6-year sugarcane growing cycle while often supporting more species and storing more carbon. Our results demonstrate that landscape-level mitigation provides cost-effective conservation and can be used to promote sustainable development.