Presentation by William F. Laurance at the Global Landscapes Forum 2015, in Paris, France alongside COP21. For more information go to: www.landscapes.org.

1. William F. Laurance
Director
Centre for Tropical Environmental and Sustainability
Science
James Cook University Australia - Singapore
Critical Impacts of Roads
on Tropical Forests and
their Carbon Stocks

2. 625 times
International Energy Agency (2013)
25 million km new roads by 2050

3.  7,500 km of new highways in
Brazilian Amazon
 Triad of highways from
Amazon to Pacific Ocean
 52,000 km of new logging
roads in Congo Basin
 New roads opening up last
intact forests in Sumatra
 $150 million for new roads in
Indonesian New Guinea
 Many roads bisecting
protected areas
90% of new roads
in developing
nations
Laurance et al. (2009) Trends in Ecology
& Evolution
Laurance (2009) New Scientist
Laurance (2012) Yale Environment 360
Laurance & Balmford (2013) Nature

4. Direct Effects
Habitat Loss

5. Road kill
Vulnerable species
• slow-moving
• poor eyesight
• freeze response
• forage along roads
• basking species
• mass migrators

6. Secondary Effects
Laurance et al. (2006, 2008) Conservation Biology
Laurance (2010) Africa Geographic Magazine
Incursions of hunters

7. Bolivia
Adeney et al.
(2009) PLoS One
Forest fires

8. Roads are
profilerating
wildly:
We direly need
strategic road
planning &
evaluation

9. A Global Strategy for
Road Buiding
(www.global-roadmap.org)
Laurance & Balmford (2013) Nature
Laurance et al. (2014) Nature
Laurance et al. (2015a) Current Biology

10. Africa’s ‘Development
Corridors’
 33 corridors
planned or being
upgraded
 > 53,000 km in
length
Laurance et al. (2015b)
Current Biology

11. Persistent
nightlights
Very low
threshold
used
Human Occupancy
Most corridors
only sparsely
populated
Click to edit Master title style

12. ‘Natural Values’
Laurance et al.
(2014) Nature

13. Biodiversity
1. No. threatened
vertebrate species
2. Plant species per
ecoregion

14. Key Habitats
1. Biodiversity
Hotspots
2. Important
Bird Areas
3. G200 Terr.
Ecosystems
4. High-biodiv.
Wildernesses

15. Environmental Services
1. Losable
carbon
2. Climate
regulation

16. Potential Road Benefits1. Converted
land
2. Yield
gaps
3. Agricult.
increases
4. Access to
markets
5. Soils &
climate
Laurance et al.
(2014) Nature

17. Conservation priority vs.
potential road-benefits
Many corridors
have high
conservation
priority
Six high-
conservation
corridors also
have limited
agricultural
potential
Promising
Marginal
Marginal
Inadvisable

18. ‘Promising’
‘Marginal’
‘Inadvisable’
Laurance et al. (2015b)
Current Biology

19. Crucial need
for better
data on
tropical
roads

20. Roads &
deforestation
0
20
40
60
80
100
0 100 200 300 400 500 600
y = 70.18 - 26.16log(x) R= 0.6569
Deforestation(%)
Distance to highway (km)
Laurance et al. (2002)
Journal of Biogeography
Effects of
‘official’
paved roads

21. Including
illegal roads
Barber, Cochrane,
Souza & Laurance
(2014) Biological
Conservation
 Detailed mapping of all roads
 Nearly 3 km of illegal roads for
every 1 km of legal road
 Much tighter relationship
between roads & deforestation
5.5 km

22. E.U. Initiative
RoadLess
Forest
Combining
remote-sensing
data &
crowdsourcing
www.roadlessforest.org
See Steve Peedell,
Frédéric Achard & Kriton
Arsenis for more info

23. Thank you