The first roads that cut through rainforests are well-known conduits for deforestation. However, new research finds that secondary roads, those that branch off the primary road, cause far more forest loss than the original roads themselves. The conservation impacts of secondary roads have not been well understood. So, researchers used satellite images and newly available maps starting in 2019 to look at secondary road impacts in three tropical forest regions: the Brazilian Amazon, the Congo Basin and New Guinea. They examined 92 primary, or first-cut, roads and measured the length of associated secondary roads and the deforestation that resulted from them. In all three regions, secondary roads caused much more deforestation than the initial roads, but the scale of impact varied widely. On average, for every kilometer (0.6 miles) of first-cut road, the study found an additional 4.8 km (3 mi) of secondary roads in the Congo Basin, 9.8 km (6 mi) in New Guinea, and a striking 49.1 km (30.5 mi) in the Brazilian Amazon. The deforestation and forest degradation associated with the secondary roads also varied greatly across regions. In the Congo Basin, deforestation associated with secondary roads was 31.5 times greater than that caused by primary roads. In New Guinea, secondary roads contributed to 22.2 times more forest loss, and in the Brazilian Amazon they led to 305.2 times more deforestation and degradation compared with primary roads. The impacts of secondary roads are not thoroughly considered when countries conduct environmental impact assessments for new road construction, Jayden…This article was originally published on Mongabay
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