ALIGN - Asia’s Linear Infrastructure safeGuarding Nature

Asia is exceptionally rich in biodiversity, home to animals such as rhinos, elephants, orangutans, snow leopards, and tigers and a wide range of ecosystems, including rain forests, massive river systems, and high mountain deserts and lakes.

Yet the rapid expansion of linear infrastructure—structures that run through a landscape to deliver services to people, including roads, railroads, power lines, fences, and canals—threatens this natural heritage. Poorly planned linear infrastructure can impede wildlife movement; fragment intact natural habitats; deplete natural resources; and cause widespread land-use conversion when natural habitats are removed or altered to meet other land needs.

The Asia’s Linear Infrastructure safeGuarding Nature (ALIGN) Project aims to expand the development and implementation of effective, high-quality infrastructure safeguards in Asia—with specific focus in India, Mongolia, and Nepal—that protect people and nature from harm and ensure ecosystems continue to thrive.