Adequate protection of biodiversity in the planning and development of road projects is typically rare in India and other countries in Asia. This issue creates conflict among planners, decision‐makers and the conservation community and causes significant delays in land transfers and decision‐making. This situation warrants the need for regulatory reforms to ensure environmental impact assessments (EIAs) are adequate, comprehensive and focused on assessing relevant impacts.
The EIA of road projects that cross jurisdictional boundaries or different land categories should be a single report, not multiple stand‐alone reports.
Regulatory reforms are needed to define the width of the road corridor for EIAs based on the likely extent and severity of the road‐effect zone.
Greater collaboration and coordination among transportation planners, land managers and wildlife experts is essential to ensure that the ecological requirements of wildlife are included in the design of roads and mitigation measures.
Reliable information on biodiversity issues facilitates decision‐making and can improve cost‐effectiveness.
The potential impact of non‐road linear infrastructure associated with major developments is often overlooked and should be considered through cumulative environmental assessment.
Many of these lessons are applicable to other developing countries in South and Southeast Asia (see case studies in Rajvanshi et al. (2001)), and improvements in the EIA and planning of new road projects are urgently required.
Planning Roads through Sensitive Asian Landscapes
Regulatory Issues, Ecological Implications and Challenges for Decision‐Making
Handbook of Road Ecology ; 430-438
2015-04-01
9 pages
Article/Chapter (Book)
Electronic Resource
English
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