Abstract
Growing demand for food coupled with climate commitments to reduce emissions will result in more land development for agriculture and renewable energy. Simultaneously, conserving land for biodiversity and nature’s contributions to people (NCP) is imperative for achieving international climate, sustainable development, and biodiversity goals. Meeting these interconnected objectives requires efficient land allocation across sectors. Here, we present a flexible, multiple-objective framework for strategically allocating land to mitigate threats to biodiversity and NCP under climate change while supporting development. Application of this framework at a global scale through country-level targets shows that if future development is planned without consideration of nature, demands for land could impact nearly 1 million km2 of high-priority conservation areas. Multi-sector planning can mitigate potential conflict, reducing carbon loss and species exposure. Our findings underscore the need to conserve critical areas for nature, reduce land demand for food and energy, and intentionally coordinate land use across sectors.
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Data availability
Input datasets and key spatial maps generated in this study have been deposited in Figshare at https://figshare.com/articles/software/BalancingLandUse_Files_zip/26133865.
Code availability
The code used to run the prioritizations analyses is available on Figshare: https://figshare.com/articles/software/BalancingLandUse_Files_zip/26133865.
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Acknowledgements
We acknowledge funding from the UC Santa Barbara-Conservation International Climate Solutions Collaborative. A.E.F., B.J.E., and P.R.R. acknowledge support from U.S. National Science Foundation Grant 2225076. C.M.K., J.R.O., and J.K. acknowledge support from The Nature Conservancy and One Earth. P.A.M. acknowledges support from Centro de Modelamiento Matemático (CMM), Grant FB210005, BASAL funds for Centers of excellence from ANID-Chile, the International Center for Theoretical Physics (ICTP) through their Associates Programme funded by the Simons Foundation through grant number 284558FY19, and the Earth Comission and Global Commos Alliance.
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L.H., P.R.R., A.E.L., and C.B. conceived the study. L.H., P.R.R., and A.E.L. acquired funding. The study concept and methodology were refined by T.B., B.J.E., A.E.F., J.A.J., C.M.K., A.E.L., R.L., P.A.M., R.A.N., A.R., R.S., D.R.W., G.C.W., and A.Z. C.B. led data collection and analysis with supervision by P.R.R. P.R.R., R.C.K., B.J.E., J.A.J., J.K., R.A.N., J.R.O., and L.H. provided data. C.B. drafted the initial text, and all authors reviewed and edited the manuscript.
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Brock, C., Roehrdanz, P.R., Beringer, T. et al. Balancing land use for conservation, agriculture, and renewable energy. Nat Commun (2026). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-026-69952-6
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-026-69952-6
