It is widely accepted that human activity has altered much of the natural habitat across the world. However, until now the extent of human infrastructure in sites important for biodiversity has been less well known despite infrastructure being one of the greatest drivers of threats to biodiversity. A new study investigates.
Infrastructure can cause natural habitat destruction and fragmentation, pollution, increased disturbance or hunting by humans, the spread of invasive species, direct mortality, and can have wider impacts beyond the development site.
Now, a team of researchers from BirdLife International, WWF and RSPBs Centre for Conservation Science, in association with the University of Cambridge, have conducted the first ever assessment of the presence of infrastructure in Key Biodiversity Areas (KBAs): a global network of thousands of sites recognised internationally as being the world’s most critical areas for wildlife.
They found that found that infrastructure worldwide is widespread in sites that have been identified as internationally important for biodiversity, and its prevalence is likely to increase.
Why these sites?
The team focussed on KBAs as these are the sites that contribute significantly to the global persistence of biodiversity. For example, they may contain species that are under a high risk of extinction or are home to species or ecosystems that are found in only a small area worldwide.
The analysis combined WWF’s SIGHT database with maps of KBAs. Maps of KBAs were intersected with spatial datasets of different types of infrastructure that researchers categorised as transport, dams and reservoirs, extractives (relating to natural resources), energy (power lines and power plants) and urban areas.
The assessment of the overlap between information in the database and 15,150 KBAs on land indicated that 80% of KBAs contained infrastructure of some type. The commonest type of infrastructure was roads, that occurred on 75% of all KBAs. Often, multiple combinations of infrastructure types occurred in KBAs.
Schematic of the frequency of different combinations of infrastructure types in KBAs. Chord width is proportional to the number of KBAs with each pair-wise combination, with the value on each infrastructure axis indicating the number of KBAs that contain both this infrastructure type and the infrastructure the chord joins it to. Note that KBAs are not independent between chords (so the same KBAs can be included in multiple chords) © Simkins et al. - Creative Commons — Attribution 4.0 International — CC BY 4.0
Most of the information related to existing infrastructure but some global data on potential future planned developments were available for energy and extractives.
The analysis indicated that that future planned infrastructure developments could lead to an additional 2,201 KBAs containing mines (a 292% increase), an additional 1,508 KBAs containing oil and gas infrastructure (a 72% increase) and an additional 1,372 KBAs containing power plants (a 589% increase).
Infrastructure is needed but care must be taken
The authors recognise that infrastructure is essential to human development but stress it’s about building smartly. This means ideally avoiding or otherwise minimising infrastructure in the most important locations for biodiversity. If the infrastructure must be there, then it should be designed to cause as little damage as possible, and the impacts more than compensated for elsewhere.
The team found that countries in South America, (for example 82% of KBAs in Brazil), Sub-Saharan, Central and Southern Africa, and parts of South-east Asia are amongst the areas with the highest proportion of extractive claims, concessions or planned development in their KBA networks.
Some of the technology to tackle the climate crisis, like solar panels and wind turbines, is also dependent on mining for precious metals. Smart solutions to the climate crisis are needed, whilst avoiding or minimising negative impacts on biodiversity.
This study illustrates the crucial importance of ensuring smart infrastructure development that provides social and economic value for all, whilst ensuring positive outcomes for nature. Making this happen will be the challenge of our time, but with the right planning, design and commitment it is well within the realms of possibility.
The infrastructure within a KBA varies in the degree to which it may drive a loss of biodiversity. More research is required to find out the extent to which infrastructure in a particular KBA affects wildlife within the site and what measures are needed to mitigate this. As countries strive tom meet the goals and targets of the Global biodiversity Framework agreed in Montreal last year, they will need to be mindful of infrastructure development as the strive to how they conserve 30% of the planet.
The study is published in Biological Conservation Open Access.
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