The Deforestation Risks of China’s Belt and Road Initiative

Environmental risks vary both among and within different economic corridors of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), China’s initiative to strengthen regional cooperation through infrastructure and investment. Identifying the most environmentally sensitive areas during the planning of transport routes can help avoid environmental damage while availing of economic benefits that come from the improved infrastructure. A new blog post at The Brookings Institution co-authored by Elizabeth Losos, Senior Fellow, and Lydia Olander, Director of the Ecosystem Services Program, based on their new working paper, provides a simple framework and illustrations of how one environmental risk from the overland (“belt”) part of the BRI might be assessed.