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

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.

Automated summary

Developing effective conservation targets is a global debate, with some proposing ambitious targets for a significant portion of the Earth's land surface. A framework based on China's ecological conservation redline has been put forward to determine ecological priorities in Mainland Southeast Asia, incorporating ecosystem services, ecological sensitivity, and biodiversity indicators. The study found that a certain percentage of the land in the region covers overlaps between biodiversity, service provision, and sensitivity hotspots, in alignment with post-2020 global biodiversity framework targets.