• Energy Research
• 15. Life on land close

AbstractTo halt further destruction of the biosphere, most people and societies around the globe need to transform their relationships with nature. The internationally agreed vision under the Convention of Biological Diversity—Living in harmony with nature—is that “By 2050, biodiversity is valued, conserved, restored and wisely used, maintaining ecosystem services, sustaining a healthy planet and delivering benefits essential for all people”. In this context, there are a variety of debates between alternative perspectives on how to achieve this vision. Yet, scenarios and models that are able to explore these debates in the context of “living in harmony with nature” have not been widely developed. To address this gap, the Nature Futures Framework has been developed to catalyse the development of new scenarios and models that embrace a plurality of perspectives on desirable futures for nature and people. In this paper, members of the IPBES task force on scenarios and models provide an example of how the Nature Futures Framework can be implemented for the development of illustrative narratives representing a diversity of desirable nature futures: information that can be used to assess and develop scenarios and models whilst acknowledging the underpinning value perspectives on nature. Here, the term illustrative reflects the multiple ways in which desired nature futures can be captured by these narratives. In addition, to explore the interdependence between narratives, and therefore their potential to be translated into scenarios and models, the six narratives developed here were assessed around three areas of the transformative change debate, specifically, (1) land sparing vs. land sharing, (2) Half Earth vs. Whole Earth conservation, and (3) green growth vs. post-growth economic development. The paper concludes with an assessment of how the Nature Futures Framework could be used to assist in developing and articulating transformative pathways towards desirable nature futures.

Socio-ecological production landscapes and seascapes (SEPLS) are characterized by a dynamic mosaic of different ecosystem types that maintain relatively high biodiversity and produce a bundle of ecosystem services. One unique characteristic of SEPLS is the sharing of provisioning services within and beyond communities, such as forests, agricultural and marine products. Conventional ecosystem assessments based on statistical data often ignore the benefits of these non-market provisioning services. This short communication quantifies the contribution of the sharing of food provisioning services in Japan in terms of their amount and variety, and it analyzes the relationship between such sharing practices and landscape types. Using an online web survey, we investigated the benefits of sharing goods and services provided from SEPLS. In both mountainous and flat agricultural areas, 16% of the total food amount came from non-market sources, compared to 10% in urbanized areas. Farmland and forests had significant positive correlations with most non-market food items in terms of amount. Greater amounts of built-up area in the landscape were associated with a lesser amount of non-market food provision. Food sharing culture can contribute to enhancing resilience against socio-economic changes and natural disasters. This study provides baseline information for monitoring the hidden flow of food provision and its multiple functions.

The introduction of renewable energy (RE) is essential for building a sustainable society. However, RE can cause conflicts between energy production and biodiversity conservation. This study conducted a scenario analysis to evaluate potential conflicts in the nexuses between energy and biodiversity for the Bekambeushi River watershed located in northeastern Japan. The increasing rate of pastureland abandonment resulting from a declining farmer population is a source of great uncertainty in this area. Two alternative sources of RE were selected to utilize these abandoned pasturelands, each taking a unique approach to meet targets stipulated by regional energy plans, thereby producing different ecological consequences at the landscape scale. Thirty-one RE introduction options were simulated, comprising a range of pastureland abandonment expansion speeds and ratios of solar photovoltaic (PV) plant installation to biomass energy use. These were superimposed using two IPCC representative concentration pathway (RCP) scenarios, 2.6 and 8.5, resulting in 62 scenarios that were summarized as three groups based on the RE supply–demand balance and the ecological impacts. The LANDIS-II model was used to simulate these scenarios from 2016 to 2100. The results indicate that both the rate of pastureland abandonment and the ratio of the two RE sources had a large impact on changes in tree species diversity and the habitat suitability of raptors. Abandoned pastureland converted to tree biomass energy production shifted to pioneer species-dominated forest. The plant species composition of transitional forests varied between the climate scenarios. The higher temperature of the RCP 8.5 scenario toward 2100 prevented the establishment of Betula platyphylla and altered tree species diversity and the habitat suitability of Ketupa blakistoni blakistoni. Biomass energy utilization produced less energy than the demand but increased the three ecological indicators. Solar PV systems provided more energy than the regional demand, but the tree diversity and habitat suitability indices for two raptors declined. However, an appropriate mixture of the two RE sources satisfied the regional energy demand and maintained ecological conditions. Our results suggest that land–energy planning should consider energy–biodiversity nexuses to strike a balance between decarbonization and biodiversity conservation.

AbstractThe two most urgent and interlinked environmental challenges humanity faces are climate change and biodiversity loss. We are entering a pivotal decade for both the international biodiversity and climate change agendas with the sharpening of ambitious strategies and targets by the Convention on Biological Diversity and the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. Within their respective Conventions, the biodiversity and climate interlinked challenges have largely been addressed separately. There is evidence that conservation actions that halt, slow or reverse biodiversity loss can simultaneously slow anthropogenic mediated climate change significantly. This review highlights conservation actions which have the largest potential for mitigation of climate change. We note that conservation actions have mainly synergistic benefits and few antagonistic trade‐offs with climate change mitigation. Specifically, we identify direct co‐benefits in 14 out of the 21 action targets of the draft post‐2020 global biodiversity framework of the Convention on Biological Diversity, notwithstanding the many indirect links that can also support both biodiversity conservation and climate change mitigation. These relationships are context and scale‐dependent; therefore, we showcase examples of local biodiversity conservation actions that can be incentivized, guided and prioritized by global objectives and targets. The close interlinkages between biodiversity, climate change mitigation, other nature's contributions to people and good quality of life are seldom as integrated as they should be in management and policy. This review aims to re‐emphasize the vital relationships between biodiversity conservation actions and climate change mitigation in a timely manner, in support to major Conferences of Parties that are about to negotiate strategic frameworks and international goals for the decades to come.

The recent rates of global change in nature are unprecedented in human history. The Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) has proposed a framework to achieve transformative change. Transformative change with respect to nature will be driven by recognizing the values people have; making inclusive decisions based on these values; restructuring policies, rights, and regulations in accordance with them; and transforming social norms and goals that can drive change. Social media is a new source of information and a modern tool for monitoring public opinion on human–nature interactions. This study identified commonalities among seven language communities (the six official languages of the United Nations and the Japanese language), demonstrating the uniqueness of the Japanese community by comparing hashtags in tweets that include the term biodiversity and determining differences in interest and concern about biodiversity from the past to the present. Tweets accessible at the end of 2021 that focus on biodiversity were collected from the Twitter server and used to form a text dataset. Interest was then qualitatively and quantitatively identified using natural language processing technology. Engagements and diversity indices were found to be on the rise in all language communities. We found that the Japanese language community has a different perspective on the relationship between biodiversity and humans from the scope of the IPBES conceptual framework. Future work should examine the relationship between passion for biodiversity and the Sustainable Development Goals. In addition, collaboration with various people around the world is necessary to understand the concept of biodiversity in different traditions and cultures.

Understanding how observational scale affects the interactions and spatial distributions of ecosystem services is important for effective ecosystem assessment and management. We conducted a case study in the Ussuri watershed, Northeast China, to explore how observational scale (1 km to 15 km grid resolution) influences the correlations and spatial distributions of ecosystem services. Four ecosystem services of particular importance for the sustainable development of the study area were examined: carbon sequestration, habitat provision, soil retention, and water retention. Across the observational scales examined, trade-offs and synergies of extensively distributed ecosystem services were more likely to be robust compared with those of sparsely distributed ecosystem services, and hot/cold-spots of ecosystem services were more likely to persist when associated with large rather than small land-cover patches. Our analysis suggests that a dual-purpose strategy is the most appropriate for the management of carbon sequestration and habitat provision, and cross-scale management strategies are the most appropriate for the management of soil retention and water retention in the study area. Further studies to deepen our understanding of local landscape patterns will help determine the most appropriate observational scale for analyzing the spatial distributions of these ecosystem services.

The paper narrates a systematic literature review on ‘’mangrove ecosystem services’’ to identify their typology, distribution, and utilization within the contemporary scientific literature. We performed a systematic review of 76 research articles derived from the Scopus database, and the dataset was scrutinized and classified against the four major categories of ecosystem services, namely provisioning, regulating, cultural, and supporting services, as per the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (2005). We attempted to determine the existing state of the interconnectedness of mangrove ecosystem services by mapping the potential synergies and trade-offs. Further, an attempt was made to understand the critical linkages between mangrove ecosystem services and their contribution to the localization/achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The results suggest disproportionate distribution of scientific literature, where nearly 56 of the studies were concentrated in Asia. The recognition of regulating the services of mangroves, particularly in carbon storage and disaster risk reduction, outnumbered the other types of ecosystem services. In particular, studies related to mangroves’ cultural ecosystem services remain underrepresented. The results show a strong correlation in terms of synergies between the coastal protection ecosystem services and the high carbon sequestration ability of mangroves; and the trade-off between facilitating water transport services and the provision of fresh water. Of the 17 SDGs, three SDGs, namely, SDG 12 (responsible consumption and production), SDG 13 (climate action), and SDG 14 and 15 (life below water and life on land) showed close interrelationships with the existing database. As such, the results are beneficial for coastal planners to better integrate and mainstream mangrove ecosystem services into coastal and regional planning, by maximizing synergies, encouraging the involvement of coastal communities as well as elaborating ameliorative adaptive measures.