NEW WEST PAPUAN ROADS THREATEN TROPICAL BIODIVERSITY

Tropical ecology experts, including JCUs Prof William Laurance, have just completed an exhaustive analysis of road-expansion and development trends in Indonesian New Guinea – the Provinces of Papua and West Papua – one of the largest surviving tracts of tropical rainforest in the world. Their findings are alarming.

 

The “Trans-Papuan Highway”, a network of paved roads that, if completed as planned, would span over 4,000 kilometres across Papua and West Papua provinces. This very expensive road-building scheme is being driven by the Indonesian government – but for questionable gains and with massive environmental and social risks. “We’ve assessed big development projects around the world, and this is one of the most worrying in terms of its overall social, economic and environmental costs,” said team-leader William Laurance, a Professor at James Cook University in Australia and director of ALERT—the Alliance of Leading Environmental Researchers & Thinkers. Their findings have been published in the journal Environmental Science and Policy. 

They conclude that three major new centers of deforestation will be created, as you can see encircled below. “From an environmental perspective, one of the most worrying impacts is new roads and huge mining leases in the world-famous Lorenz World Heritage Site,” said Laurance. “Lorenz was ranked by the United Nations as one of the most unique and important protected areas on the planet.”