The construction and expansion of roads and railways fragment wild spaces and have direct and indirect impacts on ecosystem integrity and the persistence of species, especially in areas of high biodiversity value.

The length of legally sanctioned roads alone has increased by 12 million km worldwide since 2000, with a further 25 million km expected to be developed globally by 2050 — that's enough to circle the planet more than 600 times. Roughly 90% of these new roads will be built in developing nations, frequently in tropical and subtropical regions with high biodiversity and environmental value.

Currently, it is known that 134,000 km of roads already exist within tiger habitats and 24,000 km of new roads will be built by 2050 within these tiger territories. So, in this episode of WildCats Pawcast, we are speaking with two of the authors from a recent paper that has forecasted the effects of transport infrastructure on endangered tigers.

Join this episode to hear from Dr. Neil Carter, an Associate Professor from the School for Environment and Sustainability at the University of Michigan, and Dr. Narendra Pradhan, the Programme Coordinator at the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) in Nepal.