Multiple-use spatial planning for sustainable development and conservation

Growing global demands for food, energy, and resources drive competition for space while increasing pressure on natural systems, highlighting the need to balance sustainable resource use with biodiversity conservation. While multiple-use spatial planning provides a pathway to balance this trade-off, there is limited guidance for selecting appropriate optimization approaches and their integration into terrestrial, freshwater, and marine planning processes. Here we explore the current state of multiple-use spatial planning and the challenges that hinder its adoption, including the timing of interventions, economic impacts of planning decisions, capacity building, and alignment with development priorities. We aim to make multiple-use planning more accessible to researchers and practitioners and stimulate its wider uptake to help meet international ecological, economic, and social goals.