Safeguarding Space for Giants: building sustainable infrastructure for the benefit of nature and people

The growth of transportation infrastructure since the turn of the century has been phenomenal and is expected to expand significantly by 2050, especially in Africa and Asia, under the Chinese global Belt and Road Initiative.

Despite positives, this growth presents potential adverse outcomes for nature and people, especially in biodiversity-rich nations, such as Kenya.

It is expected that the impacts will affect large and charismatic terrestrial giants such as elephants that depend on high mobility and open spaces for climatic and anthropogenic impact adaptation.

In Kenya, large and numerous infrastructure projects and rapidly changing land-use systems are found within biodiversity-rich and fragile ecosystems such as the Amboseli-Tsavo Conservation Area in the south-eastern part of the country, hosting Kenya’s largest elephant population. Elephants are important flagship species that significantly influence conservation efforts in many parts of Africa.

Understanding the consequences of transportation infrastructure is important for their management and conservation, and securing their spaces and livelihoods depending on the resources in these spaces.

The Space4Giants project will assess the impacts and interactions between changing human population, environments, infrastructure, and development at a landscape scale in the recent past and the near future.

The findings of this study will support the development of tools and capacity that will provide insight into the socio-ecological-environmental impacts of linear infrastructure in Kenya that will be used to mitigate the impacts nationally with the potential to be applied across the Global South.