Carbon stock protection and food production are key targets for conservation planning in a landscape of public and private lands

Abstract Context Demand for land for urban development, food production, and protected areas is increasing, leading to land scarcity. In response, agricultural lands are increasingly targeted for protection. Yet, which land attributes should be used to identify priority lands to protect remains largely unknown. Objectives (1) Is private land protection necessary to protect nature’s contributions to people [NCP] in a region dominated by public protected areas? (2) Which NCP indicators are the most important drivers of optimal land protection? Methods We applied the NCP framework in Idaho’s Snake River Plain, a water-limited, climate-sensitive ecoregion dominated by public lands with a quickly growing human population. We quantified 21 NCPs and used systematic conservation planning to generate cost-efficient land protection solutions. We also developed a sensitivity analysis workflow to determine which NCP inputs were most influential for priority protected area selection. Results Current protected areas were highly effective; for 17 of the 21 NCP, the majority of each NCP (> 50% of its total) was covered by public and protected private lands. However, food production is severely under-protected. Food production and carbon stock protection had the most influence on conservation planning scenarios. Ignoring climate-related NCP in agricultural land protection decisions, even in sub-regional planning where climate seems relatively homogenous, can limit contributions to climate mitigation and adaptation. Conclusions Private land protections complement public lands networks for NCP protection. Climate considerations are important to include even in local scale conservation planning. Our reproducible workflows for NCP quantification and conservation planning sensitivity analysis can be used to systematically plan for a broad suite of human benefits.