Overview of dataset This dataset consists of nine raster layers representing modelled scenarios to meet the target of protecting 30% of all land areas, under three key objectives (i.e. maximizing landscape intactness, species conservation potential and ecosystem services): Objective Scenario/indicator Filename Landscape intactness Human footprint HumanFootprint_30.tif Landscape intactness Ecosystem intactness EcosystemIntactness_30.tif Landscape intactness Biodiversity intactness BiodiversityIntactness_30.tif Biodiversity conservation Total species richness TotalSpeciesRichness_30.tif Biodiversity conservation Threatened species richness TheatenedSpeciesRichness_30.tif Biodiversity conservation Range-size rarity RangeSizeRarity_30.tif Biodiversity conservation Key biodiversity areas SizeKBA_30.tif Ecosystem services Climate-change mitigation potential ClimateChangeMitigation_30.tif Ecosystem services Nutrient-regulation potential NutrientRegulation_30.tif It also contains one R-script that provides an example of our analyses. This dataset is designed to accompany Zeng et al. and the full methodology is described in that publication. Briefly, we first calculated the coverage of existing protected areas, and the coverage needed to close the gap to achieve the target of protecting 30% of all land areas, across 238 countries. We then assigned the placement of these areas based on nine scenarios representing three key objectives—prioritizing the intactness of landscapes, species conservation potential, and ecosystem services. Here we select and ensure that the highest-ranked areas retain their present conservation value across these objectives. Last, we quantified the biodiversity, climate-change mitigation and nutrient-regulation benefits.