A slate of new mega-projects in development around the world — including roads, waterways, railways, and dams — will open up vast tracts of land to natural resource extraction and deforestation, derailing government and private sector pledges to curb forest loss, according to a new report.
Five Amazon countries, for example, plan to spend $27 billion over the next five years to build or update 7,500 miles of road that could result in the deforestation of 5.9 million acres. In Indonesia, the 2,500-mile Trans-Papua Highway will cut through Lorentz National Park, increasing access to 123,000 acres of mining concessions within the park. And in Sub-Saharan Africa, proposed infrastructure to connect natural resource extraction projects with international markets would cut across 400 protected areas and degrade another 1,800 areas.
https://e360.yale.edu/digest/a-wave-of-infrastructure-projects-to-cause-widespread-deforestation-in-coming-decades-report-finds
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