Ecological redlines provide a mechanism to maximize conservation gains in Mainland Southeast Asia

Abstract

Developing effective targets for conservation remains a topic of global debate. Ambitious targets for 50% or more of the Earth’s land surface have been proposed, yet balancing human needs with area-based conservation measures remains challenging. Current global conservation targets focus on biodiversity conservation, ignoring ecosystem services and vulnerabilities. Using China's ecological conservation redline as a basis, here we put forward a framework that combines ecosystem services, ecological sensitivity, and biodiversity indicators (including 10,311 species) to determine ecological priorities across Mainland Southeast Asia (M-SEA). We find that, based on the redline 15.8% of the M-SEA's land would cover all overlaps between biodiversity, service provision, and sensitivity hotspots, and much is already protected. Following this, 32.9% would cover all areas with at least hotspots for two priority facets, and 51% for all priorities. These targets are in line with those proposed in the post-2020 global biodiversity framework to maximize effectiveness of proposed targets.