Natural Lands Map Provides Baseline for Companies’ No Conversion Targets

By Elise Mazur, Michelle Sims, Craig Beatty (WWF) and Marco Daldoss Pirri (Systemiq)

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Natural lands around the world are being converted and degraded at unprecedented levels. Three-quarters of land has been significantly impacted by humans through pollution, urban expansion, conversion to crop or livestock production, intensive logging in natural forests and other activities. These changes contribute to climate change, threatening biodiversity and disproportionately impacting vulnerable communities. In fact, the rate of species extinctions is also accelerating, with some experts warning that a sixth mass extinction is under way.

To mitigate emissions from land cover changes and protect habitats and the communities and wildlife that depend on them, it is more important than ever to limit human conversion of natural lands.

The Science Based Targets Network (SBTN) is network of more than 80 organizations working to develop methodologies for setting science-based targets for protecting and restoring nature that are aligned with the necessary speed and scale of action as determined by science.

The SBTN recently released the first iteration of their guidance for how companies can help protect and restore our planet’s greatest resources — our water, land, biodiversity and ocean. The guidance includes a beta version of targets for land, including a target for companies to eliminate conversion of all natural terrestrial ecosystems within their supply chains.

WRI’s Land & Carbon Lab has collaborated with World Wildlife Fund and Systemiq, as part of the broader SBTN Land Hub, to lead the development of a new Natural Lands Map that companies can use to set this target.

Companies that directly operate within or source products from land need a common baseline to assess whether they may be responsible for conversion since 2020, and to assess which lands should be protected from future expansion. For this purpose, Land & Carbon Lab supported SBTN by creating a beta 2020 baseline global map of natural lands using the best available geospatial data, which we will continue to improve as better data becomes available.

SBTN Natural Lands Map

How does the Natural Lands Map define “natural”?

While the SBTN Natural Lands Map does not delineate between ecosystem types, it labels natural and non-natural land cover. For measuring conversion of natural lands, SBTN adopted Accountability Framework Initiative (AFi) definitions of natural ecosystems and natural forests to align with standard-setting initiatives and monitoring tools such as Global Forest Watch Pro and the Greenhouse Gas Protocol.

The Natural Lands Map uses AFi guidance and definitions to the extent possible. However, there are components of AFi’s definitions that cannot be mapped directly with earth observation data and for which no global geospatial data is currently available. To address this, we translated the definitions of natural ecosystems and natural forests into quantifiable and mappable delineations of natural and non-natural lands, and filled any gaps with other definitions based on what can currently be mapped with available data.

These definitions are not strictly limited to intact or untouched areas and include some forms of low-intensity management to recognize the potential of well-managed working lands in supporting biodiversity and natural land cover.

Definitions of land cover types included in the SBTN Natural Lands Map

Natural land cover class	Class definition	Ecosystem examples
Forest	Areas with tree cover greater than or equal to 5 meters in height spanning more than 0.5 hectares.	Rainforests, dry forests, montane rainforests, heath forests, temperate forests, boreal forests, woodlands, some types of savannas.
Short vegetation	Areas of land with vegetation shorter than 5 meters, including areas of land dominated by grass or shrubs.	Grasslands, shrublands, heathlands, steppes, vegetated deserts and semi-deserts, some types of savannas.
Wetlands	Transitional ecosystems with saturated soil that can be inundated by water either seasonally or permanently, and can be covered by short vegetation or trees.	Peatlands, mangroves, inland, coastal, saline, freshwater, brackish.
Water	Surface water present 20% or more of the year, where water is the dominant class.	Rivers, lakes, coastal inlets, bays, lagoons.
Snow/Ice	Areas covered by permanent snow or ice.	Glaciers, perennial snowfields.
Bare land	Areas with exposed rock, soil or sand with less than 10% vegetated cover.	Sparsely vegetated deserts, lava flows, screes, alpine rocky outcrops, sandy shorelines.

How was the Map developed?

Natural Lands Map showing land cover classes

Our approach combined both global and local data. We started with global data by comparing and combining different land cover classes from the University of Maryland GLAD Lab’s 2020 land cover data set and the European Space Agency 2020 WorldCover data set. We then added in other global data sets on specific land covers, such as plantations, mines and livestock density, that would help separate natural from non-natural land covers. With a complete global map, we incorporated local data sets with classes that fit within our definitions and help delineate natural and non-natural classes. Local data takes precedence over the global data where it is included.

This approach of stitching together existing data sets at both local and global scales has allowed us to rapidly create the Natural Lands Map so companies can immediately set no conversion targets with a baseline of 2020. However, some data gaps remain, meaning some areas and land covers on the map have more data available than others.

For example, at the time of publication, no global data delineating natural grasslands from pasturelands exists, leaving the natural and non-natural short vegetation classes with inaccuracies (Land & Carbon Lab is working with partners to develop a global data set on grasslands and pasture, which will fill this gap). Similarly, on a local scale, many countries in the European Union and Russia have tree plantations but do not have publicly available, local tree plantation data that would be help us better differentiate natural from planted forests.  

We aim to include more local data to improve the accuracy of the map — please contact us if you have local land cover data to share.

What are the priority areas for avoiding land conversion?

The no conversion of natural ecosystems target also includes "core natural land,” which are those places with acknowledged ecological importance that require immediate action to prevent conversion due to:

1. Existing legislation and/or initiatives, which include commitments to deforestation and conversion free commodities

2. Extinction/collapse risk, irreplaceability or natural uniqueness

3. Maintaining natural ecosystem contiguity and intactness

4. The provision of critical natural assets or contributions to people

The Natural Lands Map includes this spatial prioritization and will help companies determine where to focus their initial efforts on eliminating ecosystem conversion within natural lands to ensure they are core natural lands in line with the SBTN no conversion target requirements.

Core Natural Lands

How can companies use the Map?

Companies that produce products on land, or source from producers that do, can use the Natural Lands Map to see if their production or sourcing activities have caused conversion since 2020. They should also use the Map to identify if their future plans threaten the conversion of natural land, and plan for how to prevent this conversion to comply with their no conversion target.

The Map was validated with a random sample of points from around the world. This independent assessment showed that the Map has an average overall accuracy of 91.6%. Areas with local data better represent local landscapes because they often include data on some land cover classes that are not available in global data sets, such as pasture. However, we encourage all users to validate the Map and understand what is natural and not natural within the regions where they are working.

The Map is also intended for use in supply chain applications that align with the definitions used in the Map. Importantly, the Map must not be used for quantifying the area of natural lands, assessing quality or degradation of lands or any other application that uses a different definition of natural lands. The intent of the Map is to assist companies in understanding the natural land cover in 2020 to enable them to set a no conversion of natural ecosystems target and to maintain natural land cover where it existed in 2020. Any other applications of this data will misrepresent the purpose of the Map. The Map is also not a legal instrument and should not be used as such.

What's next for the Map?

The current Natural Lands Map and land target guidance are beta versions. Seventeen companies have been approved as part of SBTN’s Initial Target Validation Group, where they will beta test and set targets with the land guidance that will be validated by SBTN. The guidance is public and can be used by other companies to set targets; however, SBTN will not yet validate these processes until the release of version 1.0 of the land targets early in 2024.

WRI’s Land & Carbon Lab will continue to work closely with SBTN in developing the Map with more global and local data as it becomes available or is shared with us. Increased traceability and data for monitoring will improve the usefulness of the Map and our ability to protect natural lands and their associated biodiversity, carbon storage and value to nature and people.