"When Chinese President Xi Jinping first unveiled the Belt and Road Initiative in 2013, it was heralded as one of the largest infrastructure development schemes in history. But the globe-spanning strategy, involving up to US$8.5 trillion in investments spread across more than 80 economies, also poses a number of potential environmental impacts and could threaten biodiversity, which is of particular concern for China’s neighbours in Southeast Asia. The region is a global biodiversity hotspot and home to numerous threatened species not found anywhere else in the world including charismatic megafauna such as tigers and Asian elephants. But much of China’s belt and road investment in Southeast Asia have come in the form of fossil fuel projects or natural resource extraction – both of which are likely to cause habitat loss, threaten wildlife and increase pollution..."