Mountainous landscapes often function as ecological backbones, supporting biodiversity and creating continuous corridors that enable species movement. As countries work toward global commitments such as the 30×30 initiative, these regions are increasingly recognized as essential to achieving durable conservation outcomes.
Yet mountainous areas are also shaped by policy-driven land-use decisions tied to agriculture, infrastructure expansion, and economic development, putting them at the center of competing national priorities. When planning emphasizes one objective over another, the spatial continuity of forests and other natural habitats can be unintentionally disrupted, weakening landscape connectivity and increasing fragmentation.
Wang, Z., Shi, Z., Zhu, W., Mao, J. and Liu, S. 2026. Policy orientations reshape landscape connectivity in mountainous regions: Simulation and spatial optimization in Funiu Mountain area in Central China. Global Ecology and Conservation 66: e04105. DOI: 10.1016/j.gecco.2026.e04105.
This poses a direct challenge to 30×30 goals, which call not only for expanded protected area coverage but also for well-connected, ecologically representative networks. Because land-use changes are often difficult to reverse, understanding how different policy choices may influence future connectivity is critical for translating global biodiversity targets into effective, landscape-scale planning on the ground.
Against this backdrop, a new study examines how alternative policy orientations could reshape landscape connectivity, using the Funiu Mountain area of central China as a case study. Rather than assuming a single development trajectory, the research explores how different planning priorities translate into distinct spatial outcomes.
Using land-use data from 2005 to 2020, researchers first identified the main drivers of land-use change, finding that elevation strongly influenced where forests, cropland, and construction land expanded or contracted. They then projected land-use patterns to 2035 under four scenarios: natural development, cropland protection, ecological priority, and economic development. Landscape connectivity was evaluated using pattern analysis and graph-based connectivity metrics, which capture how well ecological patches remain linked across the landscape.
The results reveal clear tradeoffs among policy choices. The ecological priority scenario produced the strongest connectivity gains, with key connectivity indices increasing by approximately 30-40% compared to current conditions. These gains were driven by the expansion and consolidation of forest patches along existing ecological corridors. Under this scenario, fewer but larger and more contiguous ecological core areas emerged, indicating a more resilient spatial structure for ecological processes.
In contrast, both the cropland protection and economic development scenarios led to declines in landscape connectivity. Retaining cropland in dispersed locations and expanding construction land interrupted forest continuity, resulting in more fragmented ecological networks and lower connectivity metrics. The natural development scenario showed only modest improvements, suggesting that without explicit policy intervention, ongoing land-use trends are unlikely to deliver meaningful connectivity gains on their own.
Beyond these quantitative outcomes, the study underscores the central role of policy orientation in shaping landscape connectivity. The findings demonstrate that connectivity is not a passive byproduct of land-use change, but a direct outcome of planning priorities and spatial rules embedded in policy frameworks. By comparing multiple future scenarios, the research provides planners with a clearer understanding of how specific decisions can either reinforce or erode ecological networks over time.
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