Where should roads go and not go?

Mongabay.com is highlighting our current efforts to devise a 'global road-map' that identifies where on Earth new roads should and should not go.

Roads in intact forests or other frontier areas often open a Pandora's Box of environmental problems, such as increasing deforestation, logging, fires, hunting and illegal mining.

Roads can bring big environmental problems--a logging truck in Borneo (photo by Rhett Butler).

In our analysis, areas that should remain road free have high values for wilderness, biodiversity, carbon storage, and climate regulation.  Protected areas are also priority road-free zones.

Areas that would benefit from new or improved roads include regions that have already been settled but have low agricultural productivity.  In such areas, road improvements can increase access to markets, fertilizers, and farming technologies, raising agricultural production.  As farm production rises, these areas can act as 'magnets' for settlers, drawing them away from vulnerable frontier areas and thereby reducing pressures on native ecosystems.

The global road-map is seen as an urgent priority, as highlighted in a recent Nature paper by myself and Andrew Balmford.  The International Energy Agency estimates that 25 million kilometers of new roads will be added to the Earth by 2050.  Around 90% of these will be in developing nations, which harbor much of Earth's imperiled biodiversity.

-Bill Laurance