For those of us who grew up watching David Attenborough on TV, the natural world feels like an inherently wonderful place that we need to save. This natural system is not only a source of inspiration, it has turned this planet from a ball of barren volcanic rock into a liveable utopia.

That may seem like an obvious sentiment. However, at this critical moment in our planet’s history – half-way through the UN’s Decade on Ecosystem Restoration – concerned people have been marching in the streets of major European cities, desperate to oppose the proposed EU Nature Restoration Law. 

These marches are happening because people are worried that nature restoration will come at the expense of the land that we need for agriculture. If the costs of farming are forced to rise without equivalent increases in prices, then it could jeopardise our food security. 

At no point in history has there been more pressure on farmers. They are responsible for feeding an ever growing population. And now we want them to save us all from the global climate and biodiversity crises, at the same time as market forces keep making the financial situation harder.

We desperately need land to support a resilient agricultural sector. We need our policies to empower farmers to be the heroes we need them to be.

But to do this, we are also going to need to save space for nature. And this is where science is telling us what farmers have known for generations: nature does not always come at the expense of agriculture. In fact, nature can sometimes be the best ally to farmers.

A growing number of farmers are introducing natural mixtures of plants and trees in order to improve soil quality, local climate and pollinator activity. And the scientific evidence shows that this can often enhance agricultural yields in many regions. In fact, you can now see thousands of local farmers across the globe are now employing regenerative permaculture, silviculture and agroforestry practices that work with nature to increase agricultural outputs.

And this positive effect of nature only becomes more and more important at the scale of landscapes or countries, because farms often perform better in landscapes that also contain natural ecosystems. Indeed, many scientists believe that it is the diversity of wild forests, peatlands, grasslands, oceans and wetlands that have stabilized our climate throughout the Holocene epoch, making a world where agriculture is even possible. 

As a result, recent studies have suggested that agricultural productivity often increases in countries where forest cover is increasing. And the opposite trend has been also recorded in areas of Brazil, India, and Ethiopia, where agricultural productivity has fallen following the large-scale loss of nature. 

A long line of civilizations, including Mesopotamian, Mayan, Easter Island and Ancient Greek have experienced a similar fate, where the extensive removal of nature has depleted soil fertility and destabilized the regional climate, contributing to the large-scale loss of agriculture. If we continue to lose natural ecosystems, we continue to jeopardize our food production system across the globe.

In the last two years years, thousands of scientists have encouraged European governments to enhance the protection of nature. The Society of Ecological Restoration has urged members of the European parliament to back the EU Nature Restoration law. 

But it must be clear that the motivation to save nature is not only to fight biodiversity loss and climate change. It is also motivated by the need to save agricultural productivity. 

To save food production on our planet, we must also save space for nature. Farmers are at the nexus of this challenge, because they are the custodians of land, which supports biodiversity AND provide us with food. 

Policies like the EU restoration law could be vital as we strive to save nature, and secure agricultural productivity across Europe. But these policies will only work if they are built alongside farmers, to empower them to be the heroes we all need them to be. If governments can provide the right incentives, they can empower farmers to create a world where people and nature can thrive together.

Are you a scientist who wants to support this letter? You can do so here.

Lewis H. Ziska, Mailman School of Public Health, Columbia University, New York, NY 10032, USA

Terry Sunderland, Faculty of Forestry, University of British Columbia (UBC), Vancouver, Canada, Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR), Bogor, Indonesia

Sonja Kay, Agroscope, Research Division Agroecology and Environment, 8046 Zurich, Switzerland

Pauline Depoortere, TERRA Research Center, Gembloux Agro-Bio Tech, University of Liège, 5030 Gembloux, Belgium

Xianyu Yang, Department of Environmental Systems Science, Institute of Integrative Biology, ETH Zurich, 8092 Zurich, Switzerland

Yibiao Zou, Department of Environmental Systems Science, Institute of Integrative Biology, ETH Zurich, 8092 Zurich, Switzerland

Daisy Dent, Department of Environmental Systems Science, Institute of Integrative Biology, ETH Zurich, 8092 Zurich, Switzerland

Andreas Hemp, Department of Plant Systematics, University of Bayreuth, 95440 Bayreuth, Germany

María Guadalupe Nava-Miranda, Programa de doctorado en Ingeniería para el desarrollo rural y civil. Escuela de Doctorado Internacional de la Universidad de Santiago de Compostela (EDIUS), 27002 Lugo, España

Martin Herold, GeoForschungszentrum Potsdam, University of Potsdam

Huanyuan Zhang-Zheng, Leverhulme Centre for Nature Recovery, University of Oxford, UK

Sebastian Kepfer-Rojas, Department of Geosciences and Natural Resource Management, University of Copenhagen

Harriet Atherton, Environmental Change Institute, University of Oxford, UK

Jed Soleiman, School of Geography and Environment and Leverhulme Centre for Nature Recovery, University of Oxford, UK

Cang Hui, Centre for Invasion Biology, Stellenbosch University, South Africa

Roberto Cazzolla Gatti, Department of Biological, Geological, and Environmental Sciences (BiGeA), University of Bologna, Italy

David Bauman, AMAP, Univ Montpellier, CIRAD, CNRS, INRAE, IRD, Montpellier, France Laboratoire d’Ecologie végétale et Biogéochimie, Université Libre de Bruxelles, Brussels, Belgium

Gabriel Smith, Department of Environmental Systems Science, Institute of Integrative Biology, ETH Zurich, 8092 Zurich, Switzerland

Dmitry Schepaschenko, Agriculture, Forestry, and Ecosystem Services research group, International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis, Laxenburg, Austria

Filippo Bussotti, Department of Agri-Food, Environment and Forests. University of Firenze, Italy

Laura Duncanson, Geographical Sciences, University of Maryland, College Park

Marcos Silveira, Centro de Ciências Biológicas e da Natureza, Universidade Federal do Acre Laboratório de Botânica e Ecologia Vegetal

Andrzej M. Jagodziński, Institute of Dendrology, Polish Academy of Sciences, Kórnik, Poland

Andrew R. Marshall, Forest Research Institute, University of the Sunshine Coast, Australia Reforest Africa, UK and Tanzania Flamingo Land, North Yorkshire, UK

Ferry Slik, Environmental and Life Sciences, Faculty of Science, Universiti Brunei Darussalam, Gadong, Brunei Darussalam

Alain Paquette, Centre for Forest Research, Université du Québec à Montréal, Montréal, Québec, Canada

Alexander C. Vibrans, Programa de Pós-Graduação em Engenharia Florestal, Universidade Regional de Blumenau, Blumenau, Santa Catarina, Brasil

Pablo L. Peri, Instituto Nacional de Tecnlogía Agropecuaria (INTA). Universidad Nacional de la Patagonia Austral (UNPA)-CONICET, Río Gallegos, Santa Cruz, Argentina

Camille Fournier de Lauriere, Institute of Science, Technology and Policy (ISTP), ETH Zurich, Universitätstrasse 41, 8092 Zürich, Switzerland

Dave Stanton, School of Biosciences, Cardiff University, UK

Peter B. Reich, Institute for Global Change Biology and School for the Environment and Sustainability, University of Michigan; and Department of Forest Resources, University of Minnesota

Camille S. Delavaux, Department of Environmental Systems Science, Institute of Integrative Biology, ETH Zurich, 8092 Zurich, Switzerland