The role of high-biodiversity regions in preserving Nature’s Contributions to People

Increasing human pressures are driving a global loss of biodiversity and of Nature’s Contributions to People (NCP)—the contributions of living nature to people’s quality of life. Understanding the spatial relationship between biodiversity and NCP is essential for securing Earth’s life support systems. Here we estimate the importance of high-biodiversity regions in maintaining the provision of three NCP under four scenarios of climate change. We focus on critical regulatory NCP which are currently facing decline: regulation of air quality, climate and freshwater quantity. We estimate the current and future value of NCP using a suite of environmental indicators and evaluate whether risk from environmental change is higher or lower within high-biodiversity regions compared with control regions. We find higher levels of NCP within high-biodiversity regions both in the present and the future for all indicators, which highlights the spatial congruence between biodiversity and NCP. Moreover, air quality and climate regulation indicators show rapidly increasing levels within high-biodiversity regions, especially under higher-emission scenarios. Our results point to a substantial contribution of high-biodiversity areas to the provision of NCP. Protecting areas of high biodiversity value will synergistically contribute to the preservation of many of nature’s contributions humanity depends on. Understanding the role of biodiversity in maintaining the provision of Nature’s Contributions to People is critical to sustainability. This study finds a substantial contribution of high-biodiversity areas to the regulation of air quality, climate and freshwater quantity, with important implications for conservation efforts.