
The interrelated crises of climate change and biodiversity loss have brought world leaders together in concerted effort to achieve a sustainable transformation. In recognition of the contribution that healthy ecosystems make to human well-being, ambitious conservation and restoration goals have been ratified in several international agendas. While ambitious conservation action is certainly necessary, the implementation of such efforts is often complicated by trade-offs between land use and between land users. Different people gain different benefits from the landscape, and it is typically the poor, marginalized and voiceless who pay the cost of land use change. The goal of this PhD is to integrate concepts of environmental justice into global biodiversity and climate planning. To accomplish this I will consider the distribution of a few different aspects of well-being which are gained from natural landscapes, and attempt to understand how the provision of these benefits would be influenced by global conservation and restoration land use recommendations, as well as which societal groups will be most impacted. I will then explore how social values associated with land use can be incorporated into conservation planning, so that we may effectively build a safe and just future.