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• We develop a unique dataset of 3 SDG indicators at district level in Lao PDR. • We find a positive correlation between poverty and stunting in 2005 and in 2015. • We find a negative correlation between these indicators and natural areas. • There are no significant relations between changes in indicators over time. • Variations between districts highlight the need for subnational analyses of SDGs. Monitoring the status and evolution of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) is typically carried out at the national level. However, significant variation can exist within countries, and this may not be captured by aggregate statistics. Here, we develop a unique dataset representing indicators for three SDGs at a district level for Lao PDR. The indicators comprise prevalence of stunting (SDG 2, Zero hunger), poverty headcount (SDG 1, No Poverty), and share of natural area (SDG 15, Life on land) for two moments in time: 2005 and 2015. In both years, we find considerable variation among district-level outcomes for stunting and poverty. We also find that higher stunting and poverty rates are significantly correlated with higher shares of natural land in both years. This is consistent with the common perception of a trade-off between environmental outcomes and socioeconomic wellbeing. The correlation vanishes, however, when we consider changes in poverty, stunting, and natural area over the ten-year study period. This holds as well when we focus on agricultural land instead of natural areas. We observe that most regions show improvements in both stunting and poverty, albeit not always in a statistically significant sense. This points to synergistic development. Similarly, improvements in both indicators are associated with losses in natural areas in all regions, indicating a trade-off. These results suggest that both trade-offs and synergies between SDGs can arise at the district level, but that context and local conditions likely moderate the strength of these interactions. Our results highlight the importance of quantifying and monitoring sustainable development at the detailed subnational level. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

[Display omitted] • Translating broad and feasible global priorities into clear space implementation plans at the national level is necessary. • Various benefits can be coordinated simultaneously by combining multiple vulnerability features in prioritization. • The 52.04% region is prioritized in all four scenarios, yielding multiple benefits when protected. • Include more conservation features beyond species diversity to avoid relying solely on it as the criterion. • Grasslands and croplands should be allowed to complement forests in collaborative management measures. To meet the ambitious goals of the post-2020 global biodiversity framework, China's spatial implementation plan, which will delineate which areas will be protected, requires clarity at the national level. Prioritizing biodiversity alone, especially when a single species' richness is emphasized, may lead to inadequate conservation strategies, thus making it challenging to meet the requirements of collaborative governance. Here, we provide a spatial conservation prioritization method integrating species, carbon, climate, and anthropogenic vulnerability features. As such, we identified land to prioritize in conservation efforts by constructing different conservation scenarios with different combinations of vulnerability features using Chinese terrestrial ecosystems as an example. We also analyzed the differences in the benefits of different conservation scenarios. The results showed spatial variability in the distribution of land prioritized by the various protection scenarios. The conservation scenario that combined all features best harmonized the benefits and thus avoided an imbalance in conservation caused by an undue focus on one feature. The scenarios covered 73.54% of biodiversity hotspots, 63.17% of vulnerable carbon hotspots, and 80.21% of climate hotspots. We also found that forests had a strong presence in the various configurations of prioritized land, and usually exceeded 50% of the prioritized area. Secondly, cropland accounted for a prominent proportion of prioritized land at approximately 29.72%, and ranked second only to forests. In addition, when accounting for carbon vulnerability as well, the proportion of grasslands in the prioritized land increased by about 3.35 times. This study offers valuable and citable information that may be used to support biodiversity conservation initiatives in China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Protected areas are crucial for safeguarding biodiversity and mitigating significant threats. However, the effectiveness of protected areas has been debated, particularly regarding their anthropogenic protection's impact on species migration within the current protected area network. To address this issue, we calculated the connectivity between landscape elements (e.g., Core, Patch, and Connector) in China based on the resistance theory, taking the Core with high habitat quality as a source. We found that the landscape connectivity of protected areas in China is 44% of that of the natural habitats (i.e., Core), indicating that the effectiveness of the connected network of protected areas in China requires improvement. Nevertheless, the planning of protected areas in the Yellow River Basin makes landscape connectivity higher than that of natural habitats. In addition, the species abundance in protected areas is lower than that of natural habitats, overall, species abundance increases with habitat quality and landscape connectivity. Our results indicate that the previously protected area planning mainly focused on mammals while overlooking reptiles but reducing landscape connectivity gaps can enhance species abundance. The findings underscore the importance of incorporating landscape connectivity into the effectiveness evaluation system of protected area networks. • The landscape connectivity of protected areas is half that of natural habitat. • Reducing the landscape connectivity gaps can enhance biodiversity. • The previously protected areas planning in China mainly focused on mammals while overlooking reptiles. • An exponential relationship between habitat quality and landscape connectivity in protected areas was found. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

[Display omitted] • Significant stress reduction correlates with higher biodiversity. • Peri-urban and nature conservation area show faster, greater stress reduction than urban park. • Nature conservation area reduce negative affect but lower positive affect. • Psychological threshold for biodiversity benefits noted, absent in physiological responses. • Genetic preference for biodiversity may remain unaltered by learned experiences. Biodiversity is the essential foundation of ecosystem stability and significantly influences human health. However, the specific impacts of broadly varied biodiversity levels across diverse greenspaces on mental well-being remain unclear. In this randomized controlled trial, immersive virtual reality (VR) auditory-visual simulations, emulating real biodiversity scenarios, were employed to investigate the effect of diverse biodiversity levels on stress and affect. After an induced stress phase, participants (N = 90) were randomly assigned to a ten-minute immersion in one of three settings: urban park, peri -urban park, or nature conservation area. Physiological responses were measured via skin conductance level (SCL) and significant skin conductance responses (nSCR), while psychological responses were evaluated using Positive Affect and Negative Affect Scale (PANAS). Additionally, the Perceived Restorativeness Scale (PRS) was employed to evaluate restoration potential. Repeated measures analysis of variance revealed that immersion in the peri -urban park and nature conservation area was associated with a significantly faster and more substantial decrease in SCL compared to the urban park. nSCR in the nature conservation area remained significantly lower than in the urban park. While immersion in all three natural environments significantly diminished negative affect, the nature conservation scenario was associated with a substantial decline in positive affect and received the lowest rating on the subjective restorativeness. A psychological benefit threshold related to biodiversity was observed, in contrast to the absence of a corresponding physiological threshold. This disparity suggests that an innate genetic affinity for high biodiversity may persists, unaffected by acquired experiences. Our study underscores the stress recovery benefits of high-value ecological environments, thereby fostering an avenue for further investigations into human-ecological health interconnections. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• We spatially mapped comprehensive human pressure (HP) of China for 2000–2020. • We evaluated HP changes within 1687 nature reserves across four administrative levels. • Low HPs were observed in nature reserves with strict protection levels. • Better management of protected areas is needed in eastern and northeastern China. Protected areas (PAs) are crucial for supporting biodiversity and ecosystem services, but human pressure increasing within PAs, which remain poorly understood, will undermine this. Here, we used the human modification model to map the comprehensive human pressure for China and analyze its changes in nature reserves (NRs, the primary category of PAs in China) during 2000–2020. We found that human pressure within NRs showed decreasing trends with fluctuations, far lower than the whole country. But in eastern and northeastern China, human pressure within NRs has been increasing since 2000. NRs in China can be classified into the national, provincial, prefectural, and county levels, and an individual NR can be further classified into strictly protected core zones, buffer zones allowing limited human use, and experimental zones that examine different land uses. The stricter the management level of the NRs, the lower the human pressure. Our results show substantial progress in China's NRs management, but existing conservation actions are not enough for conservation targets. Strictly conservation areas must be expanded to promote conservation planning and complimented by multi-coordinated regional policy for biodiversity conservation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]