Britain’s landscape is highly fragmented by roads, with researchers from Cardiff University finding that more than 70% of the UK’s roadless areas are smaller than 1 km2. The researchers say that more than 60% of roadless patches in the UK are smaller than the typical area many common UK mammals need to survive, meaning species such as badgers and red foxes likely face a high risk of wildlife-vehicle collisions.
Dr. Sarah Raymond, who completed the work during her Ph.D. at Cardiff University School of Biosciences, said, "Roads cover 20% of land globally, fragmenting land into almost 600,000 patches.
“Because of this, roads have a wide range of impacts on wildlife, including reduced habitat connectivity and wildlife-vehicle collisions. Wildlife-vehicle collisions are estimated to cause millions of animal mortalities on roads every year and are a leading cause of population decline and biodiversity loss. Analyzing roadless areas is important for identifying areas of ecological value and intensifying conservation efforts.”
There’s some mathematical shenanigans going on there. You don’t count the number of small patches, you count their total area, otherwise it’s misleading bordering on meaningless.
Exactly. If the whole upper half of GB was unpaved, it would only count as 1 roadless area, and add almost nothing to the percentages listed above.
Yup. As far as I can tell, their biggest area category represents a higher total area than their smallest one, by a factor of about 10.