Incorporating Natural Resource Safeguards in Linear Infrastructure Planning

The report outlines ten best practices for linear infrastructure (LI) development to mitigate impacts on nature. Key recommendations include conducting strategic environmental assessments (SEAs), incorporating mandatory safeguards in financial policies, and adhering to the mitigation hierarchy (avoid, minimize, restore, compensate). It emphasizes early integration of environmental and social impact assessments (ESIAs) and the use of climate vulnerability assessments. The document also advocates for wildlife-friendly designs, including ecological corridors, and the adoption of sustainable infrastructure certifications to ensure long-term ecological integrity.

• Linear infrastructure (LI) proponents should utilize national or regional strategic environmental assessments (SEAs) to evaluate the broad impacts of LI programs on biodiversity, ecosystem services, ecological connectivity, and climate change.
• Financial institutions funding LI projects must integrate mandatory natural resource safeguards into their internal policies and standards to ensure sustainable investment.
• Public-private partnerships (PPPs) should explicitly allocate responsibility for natural resource protection among partners and include adherence clauses within their legal contracts.
• Environmental and social impact assessments (ESIAs) must be conducted early in the project lifecycle—specifically during scoping, feasibility, and design phases—to be effective.
• Project developers should follow the mitigation hierarchy, which prioritizes the total avoidance of impacts first, followed by minimization, and only then restoration or offsetting as a last resort.
• Practitioners should use global guidelines to assess impacts on wildlife corridors and ecological connectivity, ensuring the integration of wildlife-friendly measures into the design process.
• Climate vulnerability assessments should be integrated into SEAs and ESIAs to analyze a project's ability to minimize risks to infrastructure and communities under extreme climate conditions.
• Cost-benefit analyses for climate resilience projects should explicitly include the costs of environmental impact mitigation to facilitate informed long-term decision-making.
• Procurement practices must be updated to include life cycle costs, avoid materials from illegal or high-environmental-cost sources, and establish dedicated budgets for monitoring mitigation effectiveness.
• Developers should align with globally accepted sustainable infrastructure certification requirements to maximize the use of nature-based strategies in their plans.

APA

Joshi, S., & Ament, R. (2025). Incorporating Natural Resource Safeguards in Linear Infrastructure Planning. WWF International. https://www.worldwildlife.org/documents/405/Best_Practices_Nature_LI_Planning.pdf

Chicago

Joshi, Shail, and Robert Ament. Incorporating Natural Resource Safeguards in Linear Infrastructure Planning. WWF International, 2025. https://www.worldwildlife.org/documents/405/Best_Practices_Nature_LI_Planning.pdf.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |last1=Joshi |first1=Shail |last2=Ament |first2=Robert |title=Incorporating Natural Resource Safeguards in Linear Infrastructure Planning |publisher=WWF International |date=2025 |url=https://www.worldwildlife.org/documents/405/Best_Practices_Nature_LI_Planning.pdf |access-date=23 October 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{joshi2025incorporating, author = {Joshi, Shail and Ament, Robert}, title = {{Incorporating Natural Resource Safeguards in Linear Infrastructure Planning}}, institution = {WWF International}, year = {2025}, url = {https://www.worldwildlife.org/documents/405/Best_Practices_Nature_LI_Planning.pdf}, urldate = {2026-10-23}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }