Representing Justice in Spatial Land-Use Models: Exploratory Scenarios to Bridge Global Environmental Goals with Local Food Sovereignty

Abstract

Biodiversity loss and global food security are a common focus of spatial modeling efforts. Historically, food security analyses have emphasized total production, thereby focusing on availability rather than access. Assessments supporting biodiversity conservation have often communicated area-based targets or ranked spatial priorities, which may neglect land-use governance in non-priority areas. Both of these problem framings also risk overlooking justice issues which can arise when top-down planning is insensitive to the land-use needs of communities who derive their nutrition and livelihoods directly from local landscapes. We address these tensions by simulating exploratory land-use scenarios with indicators for both regional ecological intactness and food sovereignty at the global scale. Our results indicate that a combination of region-dependent pathways of agricultural intensification alongside conversion to forest mosaics can in many cases achieve food production targets while respecting environmental objectives, and that tradeoffs with local food sovereignty are negligible.

Keywords: Land-use Modeling, Biodiversity Intactness, Food Sovereignty, Environmental Justice, Sustainability Scenarios.