Confronting and resolving competing values behind conservation objectives.

Diverse motivations for preserving nature both inspire and hinder its conservation. Optimal conservation strategies may differ radically depending on the objective. For example, creating nature reserves may prevent extinctions through protecting severely threatened species, whereas incentivizing farmland hedgerows may benefit people through bolstering pest-eating or pollinating species. Win-win interventions that satisfy multiple objectives are alluring, but can also be elusive. To achieve better outcomes, we developed and implemented a practical typology of nature conservation framed around seven common conservation objectives. Using an intensively studied bird assemblage in southern Costa Rica as a case study, we applied the typology in the context of biodiversity's most pervasive threat: habitat conversion. We found that rural habitats in a varied tropical landscape, comprising small farms, villages, forest fragments, and forest reserves, provided biodiversity-driven processes that benefit people, such as pollination, seed dispersal, and pest consumption. However, species valued for their rarity, endemism, and evolutionary distinctness declined in farmland. Conserving tropical forest on farmland increased species that international tourists value, but not species discussed in Costa Rican newspapers. Despite these observed trade-offs, our analyses also revealed promising synergies. For example, we found that maintaining forest cover surrounding farms in our study region would likely enhance most conservation objectives at minimal expense to others. Overall, our typology provides a framework for resolving the competing objectives of modern conservation.

Natural capital and ecosystem services informing decisions: From promise to practice.

The central challenge of the 21st century is to develop economic, social, and governance systems capable of ending poverty and achieving sustainable levels of population and consumption while securing the life-support systems underpinning current and future human well-being. Essential to meeting this challenge is the incorporation of natural capital and the ecosystem services it provides into decision-making. We explore progress and crucial gaps at this frontier, reflecting upon the 10 y since the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment. We focus on three key dimensions of progress and ongoing challenges: raising awareness of the interdependence of ecosystems and human well-being, advancing the fundamental interdisciplinary science of ecosystem services, and implementing this science in decisions to restore natural capital and use it sustainably. Awareness of human dependence on nature is at an all-time high, the science of ecosystem services is rapidly advancing, and talk of natural capital is now common from governments to corporate boardrooms. However, successful implementation is still in early stages. We explore why ecosystem service information has yet to fundamentally change decision-making and suggest a path forward that emphasizes: (i) developing solid evidence linking decisions to impacts on natural capital and ecosystem services, and then to human well-being; (ii) working closely with leaders in government, business, and civil society to develop the knowledge, tools, and practices necessary to integrate natural capital and ecosystem services into everyday decision-making; and (iii) reforming institutions to change policy and practices to better align private short-term goals with societal long-term goals.

Improving global environmental management with standard corporate reporting.

Multinational corporations play a prominent role in shaping the environmental trajectory of the planet. The integration of environmental costs and benefits into corporate decision-making has enormous, but as yet unfulfilled, potential to promote sustainable development. To help steer business decisions toward better environmental outcomes, corporate reporting frameworks need to develop scientifically informed standards that consistently consider land use and land conversion, clean air (including greenhouse gas emissions), availability and quality of freshwater, degradation of coastal and marine habitats, and sustainable use of renewable resources such as soil, timber, and fisheries. Standardization by itself will not be enough--also required are advances in ecosystem modeling and in our understanding of critical ecological thresholds. With improving ecosystem science, the opportunity for realizing a major breakthrough in reporting corporate environmental impacts and dependencies has never been greater. Now is the time for ecologists to take advantage of an explosion of sustainability commitments from business leaders and expanding pressure for sustainable practices from shareholders, financial institutions, and consumers.

Spatial patterns of agricultural expansion determine impacts on biodiversity and carbon storage.

The agricultural expansion and intensification required to meet growing food and agri-based product demand present important challenges to future levels and management of biodiversity and ecosystem services. Influential actors such as corporations, governments, and multilateral organizations have made commitments to meeting future agricultural demand sustainably and preserving critical ecosystems. Current approaches to predicting the impacts of agricultural expansion involve calculation of total land conversion and assessment of the impacts on biodiversity or ecosystem services on a per-area basis, generally assuming a linear relationship between impact and land area. However, the impacts of continuing land development are often not linear and can vary considerably with spatial configuration. We demonstrate what could be gained by spatially explicit analysis of agricultural expansion at a large scale compared with the simple measure of total area converted, with a focus on the impacts on biodiversity and carbon storage. Using simple modeling approaches for two regions of Brazil, we find that for the same amount of land conversion, the declines in biodiversity and carbon storage can vary two- to fourfold depending on the spatial pattern of conversion. Impacts increase most rapidly in the earliest stages of agricultural expansion and are more pronounced in scenarios where conversion occurs in forest interiors compared with expansion into forests from their edges. This study reveals the importance of spatially explicit information in the assessment of land-use change impacts and for future land management and conservation.

Securing natural capital and expanding equity to rescale civilization.

In biophysical terms, humanity has never been moving faster nor further from sustainability than it is now. Our increasing population size and per capita impacts are severely testing the ability of Earth to provide for peoples' most basic needs. Awareness of these circumstances has grown tremendously, as has the sophistication of efforts to address them. But the complexity of the challenge remains daunting. We explore prospects for transformative change in three critical areas of sustainable development: achieving a sustainable population size and securing vital natural capital, both in part through reducing inequity, and strengthening the societal leadership of academia.