Retaining natural vegetation to safeguard biodiversity and humanity

Humanity is on a pathway of unsustainable loss of the natural systems upon
which we, and all life, rely. To date, global efforts to deliver
internationally-agreed goals to reduce carbon emissions, halt biodiversity
loss, and retain essential ecosystem services, have been poorly
integrated. All these goals rely in part on preserving natural (e.g.
native, largely unmodified) and semi-natural (e.g. under some form of
low-intensity/sustainable human use) forests, woodlands and grasslands.
Here, we show how to unify these goals by empirically deriving spatially
explicit, quantitative area-based targets for the retention of natural and
semi-natural (e.g. native) terrestrial vegetation. We found that at least
67 million km2 of Earth's terrestrial vegetation (∼79% of the area of
vegetation remaining) requires retention – via sustainable and appropriate
land use and management – to contribute to biodiversity, climate, soil and
freshwater objectives under four United Nations Resolutions. This equates
to retaining natural and semi-natural vegetation across at least 50% of
the total terrestrial (excluding Antarctica) surface of Earth. Our results
show where retention efforts could contribute to multiple goals
simultaneously. Such management can and should co-occur alongside and be
driven by the people who live in and rely on places where natural and
sustainably managed vegetation remains in situ, and must be complemented
by restoration and appropriate management of more human-modified
environments, if global goals are to be realised.