Sites vital for wildlife under threat from roads, power lines and urban build-up, study finds

Infrastructure is deemed to be one of the greatest threats to biodiversity, according to conservationists. Picture: Thinkstock

Thousands of sites across the world deemed vital for wildlife to thrive amid a biodiversity crisis are marred by roads, power lines, and urban build-up, a major study has found.

Researchers examined more than 15,000 so-called "key biodiversity areas" (KBAs) across the world, and found 80% contained infrastructure, with the most common being roads (75%), power lines (37%), and urban areas (37%).

According to the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), the global environmental network, KBAs are globally important ecosystems with significant populations of animals, fungi and plants.

The researchers from BirdLife International, the World Wildlife Find, and the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, in association with the University of Cambridge, found the 80% that already have infrastructure in place is likely to rise in the future.

Infrastructure is deemed to be one of the greatest threats to biodiversity, according to the IUCN. 

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The study, published in the leading science journal Biological Conservation, found thousands more KBAs will be under threat from future development such as mines, oil and gas fields, and power plants.

"It’s concerning that human developments exist in the vast majority of sites that have been identified as being critical for nature,” said study leader Ash Simkins, a zoology PhD student at the University of Cambridge.

We recognise that infrastructure is essential to human development but 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."

KBAs in South America, Sub-Saharan, Central and Southern Africa, and parts of South-East Asia are among the most vulnerable to infrastructure, the study found.

A landmark global agreement on biodiversity was signed in December at the Cop15 summit in Montreal as the biodiversity crisis reaches a tipping point.

The most significant part of the agreement is a commitment to protect 30% of land and water considered important for biodiversity by 2030. At present, about 17% of terrestrial and 10% of marine areas are protected.

There are currently more than 42,000 threatened species on the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species, the world's biggest data inventory of vulnerable species conservation status.

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