Representing justice in global land-use scenarios can align biodiversity benefits with protection from land grabbing

Summary

Protecting biodiversity while meeting food demands is a critical challenge due to rising competition over land. The predominant focus on spatial efficiency in land-use modeling frameworks can dichotomize these objectives and ignore local realities by disregarding biodiversity outside priority areas and the land-use needs of communities who depend on local land systems for their nutrition. We develop a spatially explicit exploratory scenario for 2050 that promotes whole-region biodiversity intactness using a land-system-specific intactness index and incorporates differentiated food futures by protecting important land systems for land-dependent communities from conversion for larger-scale objectives. These are pursued alongside SSP2 "business-as-usual" agricultural demands, uncovering potential tradeoffs. Our results highlight the importance of forest mosaics in agricultural landscapes alongside targeted intensification for meeting food and biodiversity goals and that protecting land-dependent communities does not compromise larger-scale objectives. This demonstrates that land-use models can integrate diverse values, including certain conceptualizations of justice, into sustainability scenarios.