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Environmental challenges for the Belt and Road Initiative

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The Belt and Road Initiative will greatly influence the future of global trade. However, it may also promote permanent environmental degradation. We call for rigorous strategic environmental and social assessments, raising the bar for environmental protection worldwide.

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Fig. 1: Main trade corridors (Silk Road Economic Belt and twenty-first-century Maritime Silk Road) from and to China and some of the most important infrastructure and ports built or planned with Chinese investment in the BRI.

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Correspondence to Fernando Ascensão.

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Ascensão, F., Fahrig, L., Clevenger, A.P. et al. Environmental challenges for the Belt and Road Initiative. Nat Sustain 1, 206–209 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41893-018-0059-3

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