Ghost roads and the destruction of Asia-Pacific tropical forests. (https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/38600390/)

These scientists wanted to understand how roads that are not officially mapped, called 'ghost roads', are affecting the environment in tropical countries like those in Asia-Pacific. They knew that roads can cause problems like cutting down forests, starting fires, and allowing people to enter protected areas illegally.

To study this, the scientists asked trained volunteers to spend a lot of time looking for these ghost roads in different areas. They searched over 1.4 million small plots of land, each about 1 square kilometer in size. They found a total of 1.37 million kilometers of these hidden roads, which is much more than what was known before.

The scientists discovered that where there were more ghost roads, there was also more deforestation happening. This means that the more roads there are, the more forests are being cut down. They also found that protected areas, like national parks, were not always able to stop this deforestation if there were too many roads nearby.

In conclusion, the scientists learned that these hidden roads are a big problem for tropical forests because they lead to a lot of deforestation. They also found that protecting these forests is not just about creating protected areas, but also about controlling the building of roads in these areas.

Engert JE., Campbell MJ., Cinner JE., Ishida Y., Sloan S., Supriatna J., Alamgir M., Cislowski J., Laurance WF. Ghost roads and the destruction of Asia-Pacific tropical forests. Nature. 2024 May;629(8011):370-375. doi: 10.1038/s41586-024-07303-5. Epub 2024 Apr 10.