A global map of roadless areas and their conservation status
Too many roads
Roads have done much to help humanity spread across the planet and maintain global movement and trade. However, roads also damage wild areas and rapidly contribute to habitat degradation and species loss. Ibisch et al. cataloged the world's roads. Though most of the world is not covered by roads, it is fragmented by them, with only 7% of land patches created by roads being greater than 100 km2. Furthermore, environmental protection of roadless areas is insufficient, which could lead to further degradation of the world's remaining wildernesses.
Science, this issue p. 1423
Abstract
Roads fragment landscapes and trigger human colonization and degradation of ecosystems, to the detriment of biodiversity and ecosystem functions. The planet’s remaining large and ecologically important tracts of roadless areas sustain key refugia for biodiversity and provide globally relevant ecosystem services. Applying a 1-kilometer buffer to all roads, we present a global map of roadless areas and an assessment of their status, quality, and extent of coverage by protected areas. About 80% of Earth’s terrestrial surface remains roadless, but this area is fragmented into ~600,000 patches, more than half of which are <1 square kilometer and only 7% of which are larger than 100 square kilometers. Global protection of ecologically valuable roadless areas is inadequate. International recognition and protection of roadless areas is urgently needed to halt their continued loss.
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Supplementary Material
Summary
Materials and Methods
Figs. S1 to S11
Tables S1 to S11
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Science
Volume 354 | Issue 6318
16 December 2016
16 December 2016
Copyright
Copyright © 2016, American Association for the Advancement of Science.
Submission history
Received: 18 March 2016
Accepted: 16 November 2016
Published in print: 16 December 2016
Acknowledgments
The data set is available through www.roadless.online and Zenodo at https://zenodo.org/record/235880. The study was funded by the Centre for Econics and Ecosystem Management at Eberswalde University for Sustainable Development, Germany; the Academy of Sciences and Literature, Mainz, Germany (“Biodiversity in Change,” Nees Institute, Bonn University); and the Institute of Nature Conservation, Polish Academy of Sciences. Special thanks go to W. Barthlott for continued inspiration and supproadort. The authors declare that they have no competing interests. P.L.I. acknowledges the research professorships “Biodiversity and natural resource management under global change” (2009–2015) and “Ecosystem-based sustainable development” (2015 onward) awarded by Eberswalde University for Sustainable Development. G.P. acknowledges funding from the European Union Framework Programme 7 project EU BON (ref. 308454). N.S. acknowledges funding from the National Science Center (DEC-2013/08/M/NZ9/00469) and the National Centre for Research and Development in Poland (Norway grants, POLNOR/198352/85/2013). P.L.I., N.S., and V.K. conceived the study. M.T.H. collected and analyzed all data, with assistance from P.L.I., L.B.-F., and G.P. P.L.I. wrote a first draft of the text and moderated its critical revision with important contributions by M.T.H., S.K., N.S., and D.A.D. All authors contributed to the interpretation of the data and critical revision of further versions. N.S., M.T.H., M.M.V., V.K., S.K., L.B.-F., and P.L.I. elaborated the supplementary materials. We appreciate the extraordinary contribution of D. Biber, who adapted Insensa-GIS to our needs. We acknowledge J. Sauermann’s contributions to data processing. J.-P. Mund suggested exploring the OpenStreetMap data set. This study is part of the Roadless Areas Initiative of the Society for Conservation Biology, led by the Policy Committee of the Europe Section.
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Roads threaten conservation status in developing countries
Large-scale studies can reveal general rules of the relationship between road, conservation and development (1, 2). Ibisch et al.'s paper represents a milestone because of the importance of assessing roadless areas and conservation status on a global scale. However, Open street map (OSM) data selected as road data source in this study are less complete in some remote locations, especially in the western regions in China. It is for this reason the unrealistic conservation status in China seems similar to that in central Africa, while the most developed regions in eastern China are similar to those in the central United States.
In reality, China's road construction is developing at an unprecedented speed. In the last 11 years, the total length of highways has increased exponentially from 193×104 km to 457 ×104 km, with a more than triple upwards development seen in expressways. In western China, the conservation status due to expanding road network is confronted with more pressure with the strategies of "Western development" and "the Belt and Road". Regional studies have revealed the severity of ecological effects due to road construction(3). More knowledge should be acquired for the road threat on large ungulates and carnivores with long migration distances concerning ecological connectivity(4). As for most expressways in China, the two sides of the road are enclosed completely by wire mesh, which renders ecological connectivity virtually nil. Scientists in countries with rapid road development should conduct further work to build ecological networks beneath road disturbances, and to apply the principles of road ecology to road design, planning, and policy making.
REFERENCES AND NOTES
1. W. F. Laurance, G. R. Clements, S. Sloan, C. S. O'Connell, N. D. Mueller, M. Goosem, O. Venter, D. P. Edwards, B. Phalan, A. Balmford, R. Van Der Ree, I. B. Arrea, A global strategy for road building. Nature 513, 229-232 (2014); published online EpubSep 11 (10.1038/nature13717).
2. R. D. Watts, R. W. Compton, J. H. McCammon, C. L. Rich, S. M. Wright, T. Owens, D. S. Ouren, Roadless space of the conterminous United States. Science 316, 736-738 (2007); published online EpubMay 4 (10.1126/science.1138141).
3. S. L. Liu, B. S. Cui, S. K. Dong, Z. F. Yang, M. Yang, K. Holt, Evaluating the influence of road networks on landscape and regional ecological risk—A case study in Lancang River Valley of Southwest China. Ecological Engineering 34, 91-99 (2008)10.1016/j.ecoleng.2008.07.006).
4. D. Lesbarreres, L. Fahrig, Measures to reduce population fragmentation by roads: what has worked and how do we know? Trends Ecol Evol 27, 374-380 (2012); published online EpubJul (10.1016/j.tree.2012.01.015).
Roadless areas, sustainable development and biodiversity
In their important analysis of a global map of roadless areas, Ibisch et al. (Science, 16 December 2016, p. 1423) conclude that "limiting road expansion into roadless areas may prove to be the most cost-effective and straightforward way of achieving strategically important global biodiversity and sustainability goals". However, the authors' consideration of conserving roadless areas identifies substantial imminent conflicts with the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and ambivalence with regard to the Aichi Targets (ATs). These contradictions seem to arise because of the phrasing of the SDGs and ATs. The SDGs lead to the authors' scores reflecting local, short-term concerns and solutions in relation to poverty, while the ATs result in scores that relate to an emphasis on "land sharing" at the expense of "land sparing" (1).
The challenge is to think globally and act locally. For example, we will neither "End poverty in all its forms everywhere" (SDG1) nor "Ensure healthy lives and promote well-being for all…" (SDG3) if we see road construction as a short-term means "to support economic development and human well-being" (SDG9, Target 9.1) rather than considering its long-term, global consequences for ecosystem services. Similarly, land sharing to conserve cultural landscapes at the expense of sparing roadless areas that support a greater biodiversity (2) will neither ensure that "extinction of known threatened species has been prevented" (AT12) nor "genetic diversity of cultivated plants… and domesticated animals… is maintained" (AT13).
What Ibisch et al. seem inadvertently to convey is that the wording of the SDGs and ATs may reinforce decision-makers' tendencies to take short-term, local decisions without considering the wider context. Yet, what the authors neglect to underline is that the conservation of roadless areas is vital to sustain our civilisation and the biodiversity and ecosystem services on which it depends only if viewed through a long-term, global prism.
References
1. R.E. Green et al., Science 307, 550 (2005).
2. B. Phalan et al., Science 333, 1289 (2011).
80-year old roadless assessment provides important context for recent global evaluation
We were pleased to see Ibisch et al. (2016) evaluate roadless areas at a global scale. Their paper, combined with recent assessments by Venter et al. (2016) and Watson et al. (2016), highlights the power of mapped data to evaluate the human footprint on our planet and identify what is left of large, intact wildlands.
Just last month marked the 80th anniversary of a similar effort conducted before geographic information systems, widely available spatial data, or computers. In November 1936, Bob Marshall (primary founder of The Wilderness Society) and Althea Dobbins published "The Largest Roadless Areas in the United States" in The Living Wilderness (Marshall and Dobbins 1936). Marshall and Dobbins identified unfragmented tracts of land exceeding 1,214 km^2 in forested regions and 2,023 km^2 in desert regions in the contiguous U.S.
This 80-year old effort to map the roadless areas served as a call to action to protect what was left of large expanses of wild lands in the United States. Their paper inspired future generations of conservationists to protect land that remained free of roads and their associated impacts (Foreman and Wolke 1992). To assess the extent of their success, we recently digitized the Marshall and Dobbins map and determined that 45% of their original roadless areas are now formally protected in national parks, wilderness, and similar designations, 15% remains roadless but unprotected, and the remainder has been partially fragmented by roads.
Marshall and Dobbins's map provides a cautionary tale of what may become of roadless areas through development, but it is also a symbol of what can be accomplished through efforts of concerned citizens to protect these precious places. It is our hope that Ibisch et al. can similarly inspire another generation to conserve the remaining unfragmented wildlands without the losses observed since 1936.
R. Travis Belote and Gregory H. Aplet
The Wilderness Society
References
Foreman, D., and H. Wolke. 1992. The Big Outside. Revised Ed. Harmony Books, New York.
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Marshall, R., and A. Dobbins. 1936. Largest Roadless Areas in the United States. The Living Wilderness 2: 11–13.
Venter, O., E.W. Sanderson, A. Magrach, J.R. Allan, J. Beher, K.R. Jones, H.P. Possingham, W.F. Laurance, P. Wood, B.M. Fekete, M.A. Levy, and J.E.M. Watson. 2016. Sixteen years of change in the global terrestrial human footprint and implications for biodiversity conservation. Nature Communications 7: 1–11.
Watson, J.E.M., D.F. Shanahan, M. Di Marco, E.W. Sanderson, and B. Mackey. 2016. Catastrophic declines in wilderness areas undermine global environment targets. Current Biology 26: 1–6.