Protecting Asian Elephants from Linear Transport Infrastructure: The Asian Elephant Transport Working Group’s Introduction to the Challenges and Solutions

Abstract

Asian elephants are endangered across their remaining home ranges in South and Southeast Asia. According to recent estimates, fewer than 52,000 individuals remain in the wild across 13 range states. Ongoing loss and fragmentation of habitat, increasingly caused by the development and operation of linear transport infrastructure (LTI) - such as roads, railways, and highways - is now exacerbating these threats. The Asian Elephant Transport Working Group (AsETWG) began collaboration in early 2019 to focus its efforts on developing solutions for conserving core habitats and decreasing mortality and barriers to Asian elephant movement. This publication marks a first milestone in AsETWG's work. It highlights the impacts that LTI has on Asian elephants and their habitats, addresses existing frameworks for reducing elephant-transport conflicts, provides seven case studies and a focus on emerging technologies, and makes general recommendations for inspiring urgent and practical actions.

Boundary Thinking Transformed

“…The construction of multi-million-dollar wildlife movement overpasses and underpasses (Jones 2022) across North America and around the world (Ament et al 2021) signal fundamental change in society's understanding of nature's need to allow the free flow of genetic material. Additionally, in support of design changes to linear transportation infrastructure, evidence-based research in road ecology (Hilty et al 2019), and railway ecology (Borda-de-Água et al 2017) continue to show how plants and animals' need for dispersal benefits from ecologically sensitive built infrastructure.…”