Meeting EU biodiversity targets under future land-use demands

The European Union is committed to achieving ambitious area-based conservation and restoration targets in the upcoming decade. However, there is concern that these targets risk conflicting with societal needs, particularly for food, timber, and bioenergy production. Ensuring that competing demands for land are balanced, while the underlying objectives of these targets to mitigate climate change and reduce biodiversity loss are achieved, will require strategic planning across land uses, management measures, and jurisdictional boundaries. Here, we develop an integrated spatial planning approach to identify where restoration, conservation, and production allocation maximize benefits to species and climate mitigation efforts, while acknowledging the changing lands demands of the bioeconomy across the EU over the coming decade. We show that, while changing production demands risk driving further biodiversity loss in the coming decade, when these changes are met alongside strategic restoration measures, as outlined by the EU Nature Restoration Law, future landscapes could improve the conservation status of 20\% of species with current habitat shortfalls while also increasing terrestrial carbon stocks. Through a series of policy implementation scenarios, we highlight the potential impacts of multilateral cooperation and scenarios of future production demands on the expected biodiversity and climate mitigation outcomes of 2030 restoration targets in the EU. Our analysis demonstrates how the ambitious targets and objectives of EU Biodiversity policies such as the Nature Restoration Law will be critical to avoid further biodiversity loss.