Alamgir, Mohammed, Campbell, Mason J., Sloan, Sean, and Laurance, William F. (2018) Infrastructure expansion and the Indonesian Borneo tropical forests. In: Abstracts from the 55th Annual Meeting of of the Association of Tropical Biology Conservation. 212. p. 36. From: ATBC 2018: 55th Annual Meeting of of the Association of Tropical Biology Conservation: linking natural history and the conservation of tomorrow's tropical ecosystems, 1-5th July 2018, Kuching, Malaysia.

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Abstract

Indonesian Borneo (Kalimantan) houses ~41 million hectares of tropical forest with global environmental significance. Currently, numerous infrastructure expansion projects are occurring in the region aiming to boost economic growth. We spatially analyzed the potential impacts of this infrastructure expansion on tropical forests and agro-economic development in the region. We found that many routes will entail numerous detrimental ecological impacts, including limiting faunal movement, reducing habitat connectivity, creating isolated forest patches, fragmenting current intact forests, substantially increasing forest edge effects, and reducing core forests habitat area. Furthermore, several routes will dissect a number of current protected areas, potentially undermining Indonesian efforts to achieve the Aichi target 11 of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) i.e. 17% terrestrial protected area connectivity by 2020. These infrastructure expansions are likely to facilitate the further development of extractive industries, namely, mining, logging, and oil palm estate agriculture but they are highly unlikely to generate the envisioned agro-economic development. Our study suggests that the current increasing trend of infrastructure expansion- ignoring the environmental values at the core of the approach- sharply increases the likelihood of serious ecosystem decay in the tropical forests of Indonesian Borneo.

Item ID:	55061
Item Type:	Conference Item (Abstract / Summary)
Related URLs:	Publisher
Date Deposited:	18 Sep 2018 00:49
FoR Codes:	05 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES > 0502 Environmental Science and Management > 050202 Conservation and Biodiversity @ 40% 05 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES > 0502 Environmental Science and Management > 050204 Environmental Impact Assessment @ 30% 12 BUILT ENVIRONMENT AND DESIGN > 1299 Other Built Environment and Design > 129999 Built Environment and Design not elsewhere classified @ 30%
SEO Codes:	88 TRANSPORT > 8801 Ground Transport > 880106 Road Infrastructure and Networks @ 40% 96 ENVIRONMENT > 9606 Environmental and Natural Resource Evaluation > 960609 Sustainability Indicators @ 30% 96 ENVIRONMENT > 9605 Ecosystem Assessment and Management > 960505 Ecosystem Assessment and Management of Forest and Woodlands Environments @ 30%
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