TY - JOUR
T1 - Road development in Asia
T2 - Assessing the range-wide risks to tigers
AU - Carter, Neil
AU - Killion, Alexander
AU - Easter, Tara
AU - Brandt, Jodi
AU - Ford, Adam
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2020 The Authors, some rights reserved; exclusive licensee American Association for the Advancement of Science. No claim to original U.S. Government Works. Distributed under a Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial License 4.0 (CC BY-NC).
PY - 2020/4
Y1 - 2020/4
N2 - Roads are proliferating worldwide at an unprecedented rate, with potentially severe impacts on wildlife. We calculated the extent and potential impacts of road networks across the 1,160,000-km2, 13-country range of the globally endangered tiger (Panthera tigris)-a conservation umbrella species. We found that roads were pervasive, totaling 134,000 km across tiger conservation landscapes (TCLs), even in tiger priority sites and protected areas. Approximately 43% of the area where tiger breeding occurs and 57% of the area in TCLs fell within the road-effect zone. Consequently, current road networks may be decreasing tiger and prey abundances by more than 20%. Nearly 24,000 km of new roads will be built in TCLs by 2050, stimulated through major investment projects such as China's Belt and Road Initiative. Given that roads will be a pervasive challenge to tiger recovery in the future, we urge decision-makers to make sustainable road development a top priority.
AB - Roads are proliferating worldwide at an unprecedented rate, with potentially severe impacts on wildlife. We calculated the extent and potential impacts of road networks across the 1,160,000-km2, 13-country range of the globally endangered tiger (Panthera tigris)-a conservation umbrella species. We found that roads were pervasive, totaling 134,000 km across tiger conservation landscapes (TCLs), even in tiger priority sites and protected areas. Approximately 43% of the area where tiger breeding occurs and 57% of the area in TCLs fell within the road-effect zone. Consequently, current road networks may be decreasing tiger and prey abundances by more than 20%. Nearly 24,000 km of new roads will be built in TCLs by 2050, stimulated through major investment projects such as China's Belt and Road Initiative. Given that roads will be a pervasive challenge to tiger recovery in the future, we urge decision-makers to make sustainable road development a top priority.
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85084639767&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1126/sciadv.aaz9619
DO - 10.1126/sciadv.aaz9619
M3 - Article
C2 - 32494684
AN - SCOPUS:85084639767
VL - 6
JO - Science Advances
JF - Science Advances
IS - 18
M1 - eaaz9619
ER -