Summary
An assessment of 29,038 studies reports that 85% found positive human and environmental co-benefits from avoiding forest conversion. The authors also identify gaps in evidence for countries facing imminent forest-conversion threats.
A global assessment of 29,038 studies published from 1990 to 2022 reports that 85% found positive co-benefits for people and the environment when forests were protected from conversion. The authors say the evidence more strongly indicates synergies between human well-being and environmental outcomes than trade-offs. The research is posted as a preprint on bioRxiv.
The study examines avoided forest conversion (AFC): preventing forests from being changed to other land uses. The authors describe it as a conservation and climate-mitigation strategy, and say their assessment brings together evidence on human material and non-material well-being, biodiversity and ecosystem services.
What the assessment found
The headline result is a share of studies reporting positive outcomes, not a measurement of how large those outcomes were. The abstract says 85% of the studies reported positive human and environmental co-benefits. It does not give separate percentages for well-being, biodiversity or ecosystem services.
The authors also identify evidence gaps in countries facing imminent forest-conversion threats. That matters because a global picture assembled from published research may not provide equally strong evidence for every place where forest protection decisions are urgent.
How researchers assembled the evidence
The authors used an ensemble of GPT models with different architectures and training regimes, including open- and closed-weight models, to conduct the evidence synthesis. They also report developing approaches to detect reasoning errors caused by AI hallucinations.
This is a synthesis of published studies, rather than a field experiment that tests forest protection directly. Its results therefore describe the pattern reported across the assembled literature. The 85% figure indicates how often studies reported positive co-benefits; it should not be read as an estimate of the size of benefits in any particular forest or community.
The assessment points to a broad alignment between forest protection and human as well as environmental outcomes in the published evidence. Its identified geographic gaps also highlight the importance of evidence from countries where conversion pressure is imminent.