Belt and Road Initiative in Central Asia: Anticipating socioecological challenges from large‐scale infrastructure in a global biodiversity hotspot

Abstract

Until recently, China's Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) has overlooked many of the social and environmental dimensions of its projects and actions in favor of more immediate economic and sociopolitical considerations. The main focus of investments under BRI has largely been to improve transport, telecommunication, and energy infrastructures. However, in Central Asia, biodiversity is not only foundational for the livelihoods and socioeconomic wellbeing of communities, it also shapes people's culture and identities. Furthermore, ecosystem services derived from functioning landscapes bring enormous benefit for millions of people downstream through integrated and transboundary water systems. Already under pressure from climate-induced melting of glaciers, the fate of ecologically important areas is considered in light of the potential harm arising from largescale linear infrastructure projects and related investments under China-led BRI.Following review of some of the anticipated impacts of BRI on mountain environments and societies in the region, we highlight several emerging opportunities and then offer recommendations for development programs-aiming fundamentally to enhance the sustainability of BRI investments. Leveraging new opportunities to strengthen partner countries' priority Sustainable Development Goals and enhancing their agency in the selection of collaborations and the standards to use in environmental impact and risk assessments are recommended. K E Y W O R D Sbiodiversity hotspot, Central Asia, China, environmental conservation, impact and risk assessments, linear infrastructure, mountains, policy recommendations, strategic development planning, sustainable mountain developmentThis is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Demand for Ecosystem Services Drive Large-Scale Shifts in Land-Use in Tropical Mountainous Watersheds Prone to Landslides

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Risks and Strategies of China’s Direct Investment in Central Asia from the Perspective of Big Data

“…The growth rate of information assets also affects seriously the management of data. In order to establish the competitiveness of organizations in the information age [5], we need to formulate corresponding countermeasures corresponding to the actual situation of social science and technology, and effectively improve the quality of data processing with the help of the scale, transmission, diversity and other characteristics of big data.…”

Horizon Scan of Transboundary Concerns Impacting Snow Leopard Landscapes in Asia

“…Massive development projects connecting China with most of its neighbors through the building of mega infrastructure (Figure 4) are bisecting the global snow leopard range, contributing to the increasing vulnerability of the snow leopard population [5,80,133]. Thus, infrastructure connectivity, population growth, and increased trade with contiguous countries in the snow leopard global range will have significant impact [134,135], mainly through habitat fragmentation and the increasing human presence in the range [8,136,137]. Snow leopard habitat intrusion and destruction are caused by enormous infrastructure projects, including large dams, roads and highways, mining projects, tourist areas [63,132,138], and the associated human activity/interference [44,139,140].…”