Protecting biodiversity and economic returns in resource-rich tropical forests

In pursuit of socioeconomic development, many countries are expanding oil and mineral extraction into tropical forests. These activities seed access to remote, biologically rich areas, thereby endangering global biodiversity. We examined how protection of biodiversity and economic revenues can be balanced in biologically valuable regions. Using spatial data on oil profits and predicted species and ecosystem extents, we optimized the protection of 741 terrestrial species and 20 ecosystems of the Ecuadorian Amazon across a range of opportunity costs (i.e., sacrifices of extractive profit). We also applied spatial statistics to remotely sensed, historic deforestation data to focus the optimization on areas most threatened by imminent forest loss. Giving up 5% of a year's oil profits (US$221 million) allowed for a protected area network that retained an average of 65% of the extent of each species and ecosystem. This performance far exceeded that of the network produced by simple optimization for land area (which required a sacrifice of approximately 40% of annual oil profits [US$1.7 billion]) and used only marginally less land to achieve equivalent levels of ecological protection. We identified what we call emergency conservation targets: regions that are essential components of a cost-effective conservation reserve network but at imminent risk of destruction, thus requiring urgent and effective protection. Governments can use our methods when evaluating extractive-led development options to responsibly manage the associated ecological and economic trade-offs and protect natural capital.     

Evaluating the social and ecological effectiveness of partially protected marine areas

Marine protected areas (MPAs) are a primary tool for the stewardship, conservation, and restoration of marine ecosystems, yet 69% of global MPAs are only partially protected (i.e., are open to some form of fishing). Although fully protected areas have well-documented outcomes, including increased fish diversity and biomass, the effectiveness of partially protected areas is contested. Partially protected areas may provide benefits in some contexts and may be warranted for social reasons, yet social outcomes often depend on MPAs achieving their ecological goals to distinguish them from open areas and justify the cost of protection. We assessed the social perceptions and ecological effectiveness of 18 partially protected areas and 19 fully protected areas compared with 19 open areas along 7000 km of coast of southern Australia. We used mixed methods, gathering data via semistructured interviews, site surveys, and Reef Life (underwater visual census) surveys. We analyzed qualitative data in accordance with grounded theory and quantitative data with multivariate and univariate linear mixed-effects models. We found no social or ecological benefits for partially protected areas relative to open areas in our study. Partially protected areas had no more fish, invertebrates, or algae than open areas; were poorly understood by coastal users; were not more attractive than open areas; and were not perceived to have better marine life than open areas. These findings provide an important counterpoint to some large-scale meta-analyses that conclude partially protected areas can be ecologically effective but that draw this conclusion based on narrower measures. We argue that partially protected areas act as red herrings in marine conservation because they create an illusion of protection and consume scarce conservation resources yet provide little or no social or ecological gain over open areas. Fully protected areas, by contrast, have more fish species and biomass and are well understood, supported, and valued by the public. They are perceived to have better marine life and be improving over time in keeping with actual ecological results. Conservation outcomes can be improved by upgrading partially protected areas to higher levels of protection including conversion to fully protected areas.     

Protected area planning to conserve biodiversity in an uncertain future

Protected areas are a key instrument for conservation. Despite this, they are vulnerable to risks associated with weak governance, land-use intensification, and climate change. We used a novel hierarchical optimization approach to identify priority areas for expanding the global protected area system that explicitly accounted for such risks while maximizing protection of all known terrestrial vertebrate species. To incorporate risk categories, we built on the minimum set problem, where the objective is to reach species distribution protection targets while accounting for 1 constraint, such as land cost or area. We expanded this approach to include multiple objectives accounting for risk in the problem formulation by treating each risk layer as a separate objective in the problem formulation. Reducing exposure to these risks required expanding the area of the global protected area system by 1.6% while still meeting conservation targets. Incorporating risks from weak governance drove the greatest changes in spatial priorities for protection, and incorporating risks from climate change required the largest increase (2.52%) in global protected area. Conserving wide-ranging species required countries with relatively strong governance to protect more land when they bordered nations with comparatively weak governance. Our results underscore the need for cross-jurisdictional coordination and demonstrate how risk can be efficiently incorporated into conservation planning. Planeación de las áreas protegidas para conservar la biodiversidad en un futuro incierto     

Ecological Efficiency of Voluntary Conservation of Boreal-Forest Biodiversity

Abstract: Current networks of protected areas are biased in many countries toward landscapes of low productivity. Voluntary conservation incentives have been suggested as a socially acceptable way to supplement existing networks with more productive, privately owned areas of high priority for nature conservation. The limited resources committed to nature conservation demand cost‐efficiency. Efficiency, however, depends not only on costs incurred to society from alternative ways of maintaining biodiversity but also on ecological values that can be captured. We examined the ecological efficiency of the new market‐based voluntary program to preserve forest habitats on private land in southwestern Finland. We compared sites that have become protected (10‐year contracts) in the program with managed forests, with sites that have been negotiated for protection for which no contract has been signed, and with the most ecologically valuable privately owned sites in the region that have not been offered for protection by forest owners. We surveyed sites for the amount of dead wood, wood‐decomposing fungi, and epiphytic lichens to evaluate their ecological quality. Contracted sites had more features important for overall biodiversity than managed forests and negotiated sites with no contract. These results indicate that procedures used during site selection and negotiations were appropriate and not opportunistic. The contracted sites were also as valuable in ecological terms as the best, still‐unprotected, privately owned forests in the region that have not been offered for protection. We conclude that voluntary conservation programs have the potential to yield ecologically valuable sites for protection if the site‐selection procedures are appropriate. Reliance on completely voluntary programs, however, may entail uncertainties and inadequacies, for example, in terms of spatial configuration and persistence of the ecological values. Thus, such programs may often need to be supplemented with alternative methods such as land purchase to achieve an ecologically effective network of protected sites.     

Comparing Spatially Explicit Ecological and Social Values for Natural Areas to Identify Effective Conservation Strategies

Abstract: Consideration of the social values people assign to relatively undisturbed native ecosystems is critical for the success of science‐based conservation plans. We used an interview process to identify and map social values assigned to 31 ecosystem services provided by natural areas in an agricultural landscape in southern Australia. We then modeled the spatial distribution of 12 components of ecological value commonly used in setting spatial conservation priorities. We used the analytical hierarchy process to weight these components and used multiattribute utility theory to combine them into a single spatial layer of ecological value. Social values assigned to natural areas were negatively correlated with ecological values overall, but were positively correlated with some components of ecological value. In terms of the spatial distribution of values, people valued protected areas, whereas those natural areas underrepresented in the reserve system were of higher ecological value. The habitats of threatened animal species were assigned both high ecological value and high social value. Only small areas were assigned both high ecological value and high social value in the study area, whereas large areas of high ecological value were of low social value, and vice versa. We used the assigned ecological and social values to identify different conservation strategies (e.g., information sharing, community engagement, incentive payments) that may be effective for specific areas. We suggest that consideration of both ecological and social values in selection of conservation strategies can enhance the success of science‐based conservation planning.     

会稽山古香榧群农业多功能价值评估

香榧（Torreya grandis cv.Merrillii）是我国古老的原产树种和世界稀有的经济树种,目前会稽山古香榧群已列为全球重要农业文化遗产和中国重要农业文化遗产候选地.利用农业多功能多维评价模型并结合会稽山古香榧群的特点,从经济功能、生物多样性保护功能、农业景观保留功能、农业文化传承功能和生态环境保护功能5个方面,对会稽山古香榧群进行综合评价.结果表明,会稽山古香榧群的农业文化传承功能指数值最高,为1,生态环境保护功能和农业景观保留功能指数分别为0.85和0.43,经济功能值和生物多样性保护功能指数值比较低,分别为0.25和0.29.说明会稽山古香榧群的主导功能是农业文化传承功能,其次是生态环境保护功能和农业景观保留功能.     

近十年生态工程在中国的进展

我国生态工程近 1 0多年有进一步发展 ,研究和应用对象扩展为社会 -经济 -自然复合生态系统 ,目标明确为可持续发展 ,从追求一维的经济增长或环境与自然保护 ,走向富裕、健康、文明三维一体的复合生态繁荣。在充实“整体、协调、循环、自生”的生态工程原理和生态控制论的基础上 ,总结出生态工程设计的 8项原则。方法论发展为从物理过程的量化走向生态过程的序化 ,从工程结构的优化走向生态格局的进化 ,从机器的人工智能走向人的生态智能。技术路线发展了硬件、软件、心件耦合 ;多学科、多技术的系统组合 ;调控复合生态系统全生态过程 ;寓环境保护于生产和消费中 ,寓废弃物处理于利用中 ;结构和功能纵横耦合成食物链网式、生命周期式、生态系统式等网络结构     

南昌市生态空间和生态保护红线划定研究

生态保护红线作为生态空间的刚性约束区域,是保障和维护国家生态安全的底线和生命线.结合国土空间规划双评价技术,以南昌市为例,选取水源涵养功能、水土保持功能、水质保护功能、生物多样性保护功能4种重要性指标和土壤侵蚀、酸沉降、水污染3种敏感性指标,采用模型评估法和净初级生产力定量指标评估法,开展生态空间和生态保护红线划定研究...     

Wildlife corridors under water: an approach to preserve marine biodiversity in heavily modified water bodies

Coastal areas commonly consist of an environment of intense economic uses and are thus exposed to conflicts between anthropogenic activities and biodiversity. While several approaches of nature protection have been applied to the terrestrial domain, aquatic biotopes frequently still lack a good ecological state as required by EU policies (WFD and MSFD). For numerous years, the underwater world has been considered as one sphere and was neglected in the development of distinctive concepts of conservation for its variety of biotopes. This paper’s objective is the enhancement of ecological connectivity within the study area through the design of benthic wildlife corridors and a consequent sublittoral biotope network. A step-by-step approach is presented for the optimization of ecological potential in heavily modified coastal water bodies, using Kiel Fjord (Western Baltic Sea) as a case study. The procedure for the development of wildlife corridors includes defining and mapping of existing biotope types, the identification of key species for each biotope type and delineating their mobility range, the reconstruction of near-natural / pre-industrial conditions and deriving the protection priorities by comparing past with current / modified conditions. By harmonizing these scientific insights with the local land use of human society, proposals for biotope restoration and improvements can be made. In Kiel Fjord, compensation measures, obligatory for human interventions, such as construction work in the marine environment in this case, have been implemented and present an opportunity to enhance the connectivity of biotopes, thus creating wildlife corridors for their inhabitants. The composition of benthic wildlife corridors, forming a sublittoral biotope network in accordance with the present anthropogenic uses, holds potential for implementation in comparably altered coastal water bodies and integration into national and international frameworks, in anticipation of its functionality.     

Conservation Businesses and Conservation Planning in a Biological Diversity Hotspot

The allocation of land to biological diversity conservation competes with other land uses and the needs of society for development, food, and extraction of natural resources. Trade‐offs between biological diversity conservation and alternative land uses are unavoidable, given the realities of limited conservation resources and the competing demands of society. We developed a conservation‐planning assessment for the South African province of KwaZulu‐Natal, which forms the central component of the Maputaland–Pondoland–Albany biological diversity hotspot. Our objective was to enhance biological diversity protection while promoting sustainable development and providing spatial guidance in the resolution of potential policy conflicts over priority areas for conservation at risk of transformation. The conservation‐planning assessment combined spatial‐distribution models for 646 conservation features, spatial economic‐return models for 28 alternative land uses, and spatial maps for 4 threats. Nature‐based tourism businesses were competitive with other land uses and could provide revenues of >US$60 million/year to local stakeholders and simultaneously help meeting conservation goals for almost half the conservation features in the planning region. Accounting for opportunity costs substantially decreased conflicts between biological diversity, agricultural use, commercial forestry, and mining. Accounting for economic benefits arising from conservation and reducing potential policy conflicts with alternative plans for development can provide opportunities for successful strategies that combine conservation and sustainable development and facilitate conservation action. Negocios de Conservación y Planificación de la Conservación en un Sitio de Importancia para la Biodiversidad     

Trade‐offs and efficiencies in optimal budget‐constrained multispecies corridor networks

Conservation biologists recognize that a system of isolated protected areas will be necessary but insufficient to meet biodiversity objectives. Current approaches to connecting core conservation areas through corridors consider optimal corridor placement based on a single optimization goal: commonly, maximizing the movement for a target species across a network of protected areas. We show that designing corridors for single species based on purely ecological criteria leads to extremely expensive linkages that are suboptimal for multispecies connectivity objectives. Similarly, acquiring the least‐expensive linkages leads to ecologically poor solutions. We developed algorithms for optimizing corridors for multispecies use given a specific budget. We applied our approach in western Montana to demonstrate how the solutions may be used to evaluate trade‐offs in connectivity for 2 species with different habitat requirements, different core areas, and different conservation values under different budgets. We evaluated corridors that were optimal for each species individually and for both species jointly. Incorporating a budget constraint and jointly optimizing for both species resulted in corridors that were close to the individual species movement‐potential optima but with substantial cost savings. Our approach produced corridors that were within 14% and 11% of the best possible corridor connectivity for grizzly bears (Ursus arctos) and wolverines (Gulo gulo), respectively, and saved 75% of the cost. Similarly, joint optimization under a combined budget resulted in improved connectivity for both species relative to splitting the budget in 2 to optimize for each species individually. Our results demonstrate economies of scale and complementarities conservation planners can achieve by optimizing corridor designs for financial costs and for multiple species connectivity jointly. We believe that our approach will facilitate corridor conservation by reducing acquisition costs and by allowing derived corridors to more closely reflect conservation priorities.     

Conserving Biodiversity and Ecosystem Function through Limited Development: an Empirical Evaluation

Abstract:  Suburban, exurban, and rural development in the United States consumes nearly 1 million hectares of land per year and is a leading threat to biodiversity. In response to this threat, conservation development has been advanced as a way to combine land development and land conservation while providing functional protection for natural resources. Yet, although conservation development techniques have been in use for decades, there have been few critical evaluations of their conservation effectiveness. We addressed this deficiency by assessing the conservation outcomes of one type of conservation development project: conservation and limited development projects (CLDPs). Conducted by land trusts, landowners, and developers, CLDPs use revenue from limited development to finance the protection of land and natural resources. We compared a sample of 10 CLDPs from the eastern United States with their respective baseline scenarios (conventional development) and with a sample of conservation subdivisions—a different conservation development technique characterized by higher-density development. To measure conservation success, we created an evaluation method containing eight indicators that quantify project impacts to terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems at the site and in the surrounding landscape. The CLDPs protected and managed threatened natural resources including rare species and ecological communities. In terms of conservation benefits, the CLDPs significantly outperformed their respective baseline scenarios and the conservation subdivisions. These results imply that CLDPs can offer a low-impact alternative to conventional development and a low-cost method for protecting land when conventional conservation techniques are too expensive. In addition, our evaluation method demonstrates how planners and developers can incorporate appropriate ecological considerations when designing, reviewing, and evaluating conservation development projects.     

Conserving Connectivity: Some Lessons from Mountain Lions in Southern California

Abstract: Habitat corridors can be essential for persistence of wildlife populations in fragmented landscapes. Although much research has focused on identifying species and places critical for conservation action, the conservation literature contains surprisingly few examples of corridors that actually have been protected and so provides little guidance for moving from planning through implementation. We examined a case study from southern California that combines monitoring of radio‐collared mountain lions (Puma concolor) with an assessment of land‐protection efforts to illustrate lessons learned while attempting to maintain ecological connectivity in a rapidly urbanizing landscape. As in many places, conservation scientists have provided science‐based maps of where conservation efforts should focus. But implementing corridors is a business decision based not solely on ecological information but also on cost, opportunity cost, investment risk, and other feasibility considerations. Here, the type and pattern of development is such that key connections will be lost unless they are explicitly protected. Keeping pace with conversion, however, has been difficult, especially because conservation efforts have been limited to traditional parcel‐by‐parcel land‐protection techniques. The challenges of and trade‐offs in implementation make it clear that in southern California, connectivity cannot be bought one parcel at a time. Effective land‐use plans and policies that incorporate conservation principles, such as California's Natural Communities Conservation Planning program, are needed to support the retention of landscape permeability. Lessons from this study have broad application, especially as a precautionary tale for places where such extensive and intensive development has not yet occurred. Given how limiting resources are for biodiversity conservation, conservationists must be disciplined about where and how they attempt corridor protection: in rapidly fragmenting landscapes, the opportunity for success can be surprisingly fleeting.     

Testing the presence of marine protected areas against their ability to reduce pressures on biodiversity

Marine protected areas (MPAs) are the preferred tool for preventing marine biodiversity loss, as reflected in international protected area targets. Although the area covered by MPAs is expanding, there is a concern that opposition from resource users is driving them into already low-use locations, whereas high-pressure areas remain unprotected, which has serious implications for biodiversity conservation. We tested the spatial relationships between different human-induced pressures on marine biodiversity and global MPAs. We used global, modeled pressure data and the World Database on Protected Areas to calculate the levels of 15 different human-induced pressures inside and outside the world's MPAs. We fitted binomial generalized linear models to the data to determine whether each pressure had a positive or negative effect on the likelihood of an area being protected and whether this effect changed with different categories of protection. Pelagic and artisanal fishing, shipping, and introductions of invasive species by ships had a negative relationship with protection, and this relationship persisted under even the least restrictive categories of protection (e.g., protected areas classified as category VI under the International Union for Conservation of Nature, a category that permits sustainable use). In contrast, pressures from dispersed, diffusive sources (e.g., pollution and ocean acidification) had positive relationships with protection. Our results showed that MPAs are systematically established in areas where there is low political opposition, limiting the capacity of existing MPAs to manage key drivers of biodiversity loss. We suggest that conservation efforts focus on biodiversity outcomes and effective reduction of pressures rather than prescribing area-based targets, and that alternative approaches to conservation are needed in areas where protection is not feasible.     

Applying network theory to prioritize multispecies habitat networks that are robust to climate and land‐use change

Designing connected landscapes is among the most widespread strategies for achieving biodiversity conservation targets. The challenge lies in simultaneously satisfying the connectivity needs of multiple species at multiple spatial scales under uncertain climate and land‐use change. To evaluate the contribution of remnant habitat fragments to the connectivity of regional habitat networks, we developed a method to integrate uncertainty in climate and land‐use change projections with the latest developments in network‐connectivity research and spatial, multipurpose conservation prioritization. We used land‐use change simulations to explore robustness of species’ habitat networks to alternative development scenarios. We applied our method to 14 vertebrate focal species of periurban Montreal, Canada. Accounting for connectivity in spatial prioritization strongly modified conservation priorities and the modified priorities were robust to uncertain climate change. Setting conservation priorities based on habitat quality and connectivity maintained a large proportion of the region's connectivity, despite anticipated habitat loss due to climate and land‐use change. The application of connectivity criteria alongside habitat‐quality criteria for protected‐area design was efficient with respect to the amount of area that needs protection and did not necessarily amplify trade‐offs among conservation criteria. Our approach and results are being applied in and around Montreal and are well suited to the design of ecological networks and green infrastructure for the conservation of biodiversity and ecosystem services in other regions, in particular regions around large cities, where connectivity is critically low.     

Value of protected areas to avian persistence across 20 years of climate and land-use change

Establishing protected areas, where human activities and land cover changes are restricted, is among the most widely used strategies for biodiversity conservation. This practice is based on the assumption that protected areas buffer species from processes that drive extinction. However, protected areas can maintain biodiversity in the face of climate change and subsequent shifts in distributions have been questioned. We evaluated the degree to which protected areas influenced colonization and extinction patterns of 97 avian species over 20 years in the northeastern United States. We fitted single-visit dynamic occupancy models to data from Breeding Bird Atlases to quantify the magnitude of the effect of drivers of local colonization and extinction (e.g., climate, land cover, and amount of protected area) in heterogeneous landscapes that varied in the amount of area under protection. Colonization and extinction probabilities improved as the amount of protected area increased, but these effects were conditional on landscape context and species characteristics. In this forest-dominated region, benefits of additional land protection were greatest when both forest cover in a grid square and amount of protected area in neighboring grid squares were low. Effects did not vary with species’ migratory habit or conservation status. Increasing the amounts of land protection benefitted the range margins species but not the core range species. The greatest improvements in colonization and extinction rates accrued for forest birds relative to open-habitat or generalist species. Overall, protected areas stemmed extinction more than they promoted colonization. Our results indicate that land protection remains a viable conservation strategy despite changing habitat and climate, as protected areas both reduce the risk of local extinction and facilitate movement into new areas. Our findings suggest conservation in the face of climate change favors creation of new protected areas over enlarging existing ones as the optimal strategy to reduce extinction and provide stepping stones for the greatest number of species.     

A Multiscale Network Analysis of Protected‐Area Connectivity for Mammals in the United States

Abstract: Protected areas must be close, or connected, enough to allow for the preservation of large‐scale ecological and evolutionary processes, such as gene flow, migration, and range shifts in response to climate change. Nevertheless, it is unknown whether the network of protected areas in the United States is connected in a way that will preserve biodiversity over large temporal and spatial scales. It is also unclear whether protected‐area networks that function for larger species will function for smaller species. We assessed the connectivity of protected areas in the three largest biomes in the United States. With methods from graph theory—a branch of mathematics that deals with connectivity and flow—we identified and measured networks of protected areas for three different groups of mammals. We also examined the value of using umbrella species (typically large‐bodied, far‐ranging mammals) in designing large‐scale networks of protected areas. Although the total amount of protected land varied greatly among biomes in the United States, overall connectivity did not. In general, protected‐area networks were well connected for large mammals but not for smaller mammals. Additionally, it was not possible to predict connectivity for small mammals on the basis of connectivity for large mammals, which suggests the umbrella species approach may not be an appropriate design strategy for conservation networks intended to protect many species. Our findings indicate different strategies should be used to increase the likelihood of persistence for different groups of species. Strategic linkages of existing lands should be a conservation priority for smaller mammals, whereas conservation of larger mammals would benefit most from the protection of more land.     

Using perceptions as evidence to improve conservation and environmental management

The conservation community is increasingly focusing on the monitoring and evaluation of management, governance, ecological, and social considerations as part of a broader move toward adaptive management and evidence‐based conservation. Evidence is any information that can be used to come to a conclusion and support a judgment or, in this case, to make decisions that will improve conservation policies, actions, and outcomes. Perceptions are one type of information that is often dismissed as anecdotal by those arguing for evidence‐based conservation. In this paper, I clarify the contributions of research on perceptions of conservation to improving adaptive and evidence‐based conservation. Studies of the perceptions of local people can provide important insights into observations, understandings and interpretations of the social impacts, and ecological outcomes of conservation; the legitimacy of conservation governance; and the social acceptability of environmental management. Perceptions of these factors contribute to positive or negative local evaluations of conservation initiatives. It is positive perceptions, not just objective scientific evidence of effectiveness, that ultimately ensure the support of local constituents thus enabling the long‐term success of conservation. Research on perceptions can inform courses of action to improve conservation and governance at scales ranging from individual initiatives to national and international policies. Better incorporation of evidence from across the social and natural sciences and integration of a plurality of methods into monitoring and evaluation will provide a more complete picture on which to base conservation decisions and environmental management.     

Generating spatially optimized habitat in a trade‐off between social optimality and budget efficiency

Auctions have been proposed as alternatives to payments for environmental services when spatial interactions and costs are better known to landowners than to the conservation agency (asymmetric information). Recently, an auction scheme was proposed that delivers optimal conservation in the sense that social welfare is maximized. I examined the social welfare and the budget efficiency delivered by this scheme, where social welfare represents the difference between the monetized ecological benefit and the conservation cost incurred to the landowners and budget efficiency is defined as maximizing the ecological benefit for a given conservation budget. For the analysis, I considered a stylized landscape with land patches that can be used for agriculture or conservation. The ecological benefit was measured by an objective function that increases with increasing number and spatial aggregation of conserved land patches. I compared the social welfare and the budget efficiency of the auction scheme with an agglomeration payment, a policy scheme that considers spatial interactions and that was proposed recently. The auction delivered a higher level of social welfare than the agglomeration payment. However, the agglomeration payment was more efficient budgetarily than the auction, so the comparative performances of the 2 schemes depended on the chosen policy criterion–social welfare or budget efficiency. Both policy criteria are relevant for conservation. Which one should be chosen depends on the problem at hand, for example, whether social preferences should be taken into account in the decision of how much money to invest in conservation or whether the available conservation budget is strictly limited.     

Incorporating connectivity into conservation planning for the optimal representation of multiple species and ecosystem services

Conservation planning tends to focus on protecting species’ ranges or landscape connectivity but seldom both—particularly in the case of diverse taxonomic assemblages and multiple planning goals. Therefore, information on potential trade-offs between maintaining landscape connectivity and achieving other conservation objectives is lacking. We developed an optimization approach to prioritize the maximal protection of species’ ranges, ecosystem types, and forest carbon stocks, while also including habitat connectivity for range-shifting species and dispersal corridors to link protected area. We applied our approach to Sabah, Malaysia, where the state government mandated an increase in protected-area coverage of approximately 305,000 ha but did not specify where new protected areas should be. Compared with a conservation planning approach that did not incorporate the 2 connectivity features, our approach increased the protection of dispersal corridors and elevational connectivity by 13% and 21%, respectively. Coverage of vertebrate and plant species’ ranges and forest types were the same whether connectivity was included or excluded. Our approach protected 2% less forest carbon and 3% less butterfly range than when connectivity features were not included. Hence, the inclusion of connectivity into conservation planning can generate large increases in the protection of landscape connectivity with minimal loss of representation of other conservation targets.