Over 80% of world’s key biodiversity sites have human infrastructure, reveals new study

The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) lists infrastructure as one of the greatest threats to biodiversity. It can fragment, pollution and destroy natural habitats. It can also indirectly increase human disturbance and hunting. Further, it can lead to the spread of invasive species that can threaten the local floral and fauna.

Finding infrastructure in key biodiversity areas

Researchers from the University of Cambridge, BirdLife International, WWF and the RSPB conducted an assessment of infrastructure in these KBAs. The results of the research were published earlier this week in the journal Biological Conversation.

“It’s concerning that human developments exist in the vast majority of sites that have been identified as being critical for nature,” said Ash Zimkins, lead author of the study, in a press statement. Zimkins is a Zoology PhD scholar at Cambridge.

The researchers intersected maps of KBAs with spatial datasets of different kinds of infrastructure that were categorised as transport, dams and reservoirs, extractives (mines and other locations were natural resources are extracted, energy – power plants and power transmission lines), and urban areas.

Researchers assessed 15,150 such KBAs and found that 80 per cent contained infrastructure of some sort. The most common kinds of infrastructure on these KBAs were roads (75 per cent), power lines (37 per cent) and urban areas (37 per cent). Europe, North Africa, Brazil, South Africa, Japan and Australia had the highest frequency of multiple types of infrastructures within their KBAs.

“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,” added Simkins.

Responsibly planning human infrastructure projects to protect biodiversity

Apart from existing infrastructure, the researchers found that planned future developments could mean that an additional 2,201 KBAs will contain mines, 1,509 KBAs will contain oil and gas infrastructure and 1,372 KBAs will contain power plants.

“It’s also concerning to see that in the future, extensive mining and oil and gas related infrastructure is planned to be built in many of the world’s most important sites for biodiversity,” Simkins said.

Interestingly, some of the technologies that are required to tackle the climate crisis, like solar panels, batteries and wind turbines, are also dependent on mining for resources. According to Simkins, we also need to minimise the damage caused to biodiversity when we think of solutions to climate change.

“At the UN biodiversity COP15 meetings in Montreal last year, governments committed to halting human-induced extinctions. Widespread destruction or degradation of the natural habitats within KBAs could lead to wholesale extinctions, so existing infrastructure in KBAs must be managed to minimise impacts, and further development in these sites has to be avoided as far as possible,” said study co-author Stuart Butchart, in a press statement. Butchart is chief scientist at BirdLife International and ahonorary research fellow at Cambridge.

While the research has found considerable overlap between human infrastructure and KBAs, it does not quantify the effect the former will have on the latter. Further research will be required to find the extent to which such infrastructure development in KBAs affect the wildlife in that site.