Interactions among sustainable development goal 15 (life on land) and other sustainable development goals: Knowledge for identifying global conservation actions

AbstractSustainable development goals (SDGs) and their targets were designed to be interlinked. Understanding the interactions among SDGs is crucial to prioritize and implement actions that maximize synergies between SDGs while minimizing trade‐offs, which can accelerate the overall progress toward all SDGs. Since the 2021 United Nations Climate Change Conference reaffirmed the importance of SDG 15 (life on land), defining conservation actions for implementing SDG 15 in the context of considering the interactions between SDGs is urgently required. However, to the best of our knowledge, no study has analyzed specifically the interactions between all targets of SDG 15 and other SDG targets. Through in‐depth review of relevant literature from the past 6 years, we collected and synthesized data about the interactions between SDG 15 and other SDGs at the target level. On the basis of the targets' interactions network composed by this dataset, we further identified the centralities, similarities, and systemic roles of each target of SDG 15 in the network; and their prospective roles in actions toward SDG progress. Then, we assessed quantitatively the interactions on the basis of global time‐series data. After cross‐checking all results, we identified prioritizations of the SDG 15 targets, and global priority conservation actions needed for the policy making and research community.