Abstract
<title>Abstract</title> <p>Ecological novelty is widespread across the biosphere, presenting challenges for the future of conservation and restoration. Despite growing work on the ecological components of novelty, the potential for reshaping human livelihoods has not been quantified. This study analyses the global exposure of humans that depend on nature to ecological novelty. We map three key facets of ecologically novelty, exploring how exposure overlaps with different levels of nature dependency. We find that over half the global rural population, approximately 1.76 billion people, live in areas experiencing high levels of novelty-generating processes. Across multiple ecosystem services, service provision is lower in highly novel conditions. Our findings indicate that ecological novelty is already altering the context of human-nature relationships. As novelty represents a new socio-ecological condition, this highlights the importance of incorporating ecological novelty in planning management and sustainability actions that are both human and nature friendly.</p>