A global assessment reveals widespread co-benefits for forest protection

Abstract

Avoided forest conversion ("AFC") is a high-impact conservation and climate mitigation strategy, yet its impacts on human well-being and ecosystems remain an open question. We present the first global and comprehensive assessment of AFC impacts on human material and non-material well-being, biodiversity, and ecosystem services in a set of 29,038 studies published between 1990-2022. We leveraged an ensemble of open- and closed-weight GPT models, training regimes, and architectures, and applied novel approaches to detect hallucination-induced reasoning errors. 85% of the studies report positive human and environmental co-benefits, with strong evidence for synergies rather than trade-offs. Nevertheless, there are evidence gaps for countries facing imminent forest conversion threats. Methodologically, this study advances an AI workflow for conducting complex, holistic evidence syntheses that traditionally require thousands of expert hours. The results reinforce AFC as an immediate climate and conservation solution capable of delivering substantial environmental and human well-being benefits.