Earlier this year, a baby Asian elephant died after being hit by a truck on Gerik-Jeli Highway, in Peninsular Malaysia. In distress, his mother stood by for hours and had to be tranquilized in order to be moved from the area. This heartbreaking event, which happened on Mother’s Day, was a sad reminder of the conflict between human development and wildlife survival. To address this problem and prevent future tragedies, the Center for Large Landscape Conservation (CLLC) has been co-organizing workshops with partners to promote actionable solutions in the 13 countries where Asian elephants still live in the wild.
Asian elephants are a keystone species and are ecosystem engineers, meaning they play a disproportionately large role in maintaining ecosystem structure and biodiversity. They are important seed dispersers, having large home ranges and higher mobility, actively modifying their habitats and affecting the availability of resources to other organisms. Conserving healthy Asian elephant populations in landscapes is crucial for conserving biodiversity. However, it is estimated that fewer than 52,000 Asian elephants remain in the wild. These endangered animals thrive when following their traditional movement routes to access food, water, and mates. Populations are declining due to habitat loss and fragmentation, including from linear infrastructure like roads and railways that can inhibit movement and increase wildlife-vehicle collisions.
In response to this critical issue, the 13 Asian elephant range countries signed the Jakarta Declaration in 2017, committing to reduce infrastructure development in key habitats and ensure consideration of elephant movement in development planning. To advance solutions, IUCN’s WCPA Connectivity Conservation Specialist Group and SSC Asian Elephant Specialist Group jointly formed the Asian Elephant Transport Working Group (AsETWG) in 2018 to improve Asian elephant core habitats and movement corridors that are increasingly threatened by linear transport infrastructure.
New Guidelines for Elephant-Friendly Linear Infrastructure
Since the working group formed, CLLC has increasingly engaged with partners across Asia to share knowledge, build capacity, promote research, and implement conservation efforts in the 13 countries through the coordination of the AsETWG. This collaboration produced a groundbreaking Handbook with first-ever guidelines for designing elephant-specific crossing structures. The ‘Handbook to Mitigate the Impacts of Roads and Railways on Asian Elephants’ was published in 2024.
The content of the Handbook is now being disseminated to share knowledge and increase the capacity to avoid and mitigate the impacts that linear transportation infrastructure poses to the survival of Asian elephants’ populations. Its rollout—including webinars and on-the-ground workshops—is already influencing decision-making by government agencies and linear infrastructure planners to improve planning and mitigation in countries like Bhutan, Malaysia, Bangladesh, and Sri Lanka.
In February 2025, after a presentation about the Handbook at the 4th Annual Asian Elephant Range States Meeting, the representatives of the government agencies from the range states reaffirmed their commitment to ensure that new permitted development such as linear infrastructure consider elephant habitat conservation and promote the development of national guidelines on wildlife-friendly linear infrastructure. This commitment laid the groundwork for workshops for elephant and infrastructure experts to meet with government agencies and other stakeholders to turn the guidelines into on-the-ground efforts.
Workshops Kick Off in Asia
The first two workshops kicked off earlier this year, in Bhutan and Malaysia, through a collaboration between CLLC, AsETWG, WWF-Bhutan and WWF-Malaysia, and government agencies from the host countries. The aim of the workshops was to apply learnings and principles from the Handbook and enhance understanding and technical capacity among stakeholders to promote sustainable infrastructure that balances development needs with biodiversity conservation.
CLLC’s Linear Infrastructure Ecology Advisor Fernanda Teixeira attended both workshops and presented on the impacts of linear infrastructure on wildlife and on recommendations of mitigation measures. In addition, our Senior Conservation Advisor Rob Ament presented virtually at the Bhutan workshop on the IUCN Technical Report Addressing ecological connectivity in the development of roads, railways and canals.
Bhutan
From March 25–27, Bhutan hosted its first-ever Wildlife-Friendly Infrastructure Training Workshop in the capital city of Thimphu. The event brought together around 50 participants from 27 institutions, including highway engineers working on major projects like the Gelephu Mindfulness City, as well as representatives from government departments, NGOs, and funding agencies.
During the workshop, the AsETWG led technical sessions focused on the Handbook and shared current evidence on how linear infrastructure affects wildlife, along with case studies, existing mitigation strategies, and best practices. The Bhutan Highways Connectivity Master Plan to 2040 was presented by the Department of Surface Transport, highlighting its vision of improving transport while maintaining ecological integrity, as the country continues expansion of its road system. The workshop ended with a forward-looking session in which participants proposed a roadmap for short-, mid-, and long-term actions to support Bhutan’s vision for sustainable development.
Sabah, Malaysia
From May 6 to 9, 2025, the Workshop on Constructing Wildlife-friendly Infrastructure was held in the Maliau Basin Conservation Area, in Sabah, Malaysia. A total of 45 participants attended the event, including government agencies and NGOs. The workshop was an excellent opportunity to share cross-sectoral experiences between agencies on sustainable road infrastructure.
The workshop featured a field trip to visit existing crossing structures within the Maliau Basin Conservation Area and visit a few high-biodiversity sites along a single-lane road that will be upgraded in Phase 3 of the Pan Borneo Highway Project in Sabah. This road project aims to link the main towns of Tawau and Keningau, crossing remote districts of Kalabakan, including protected areas with primary forest and important areas for elephant movement. Since planning and budgeting for Phase 3 has not occurred yet, there is still time for experts to have an influence over the road design to avoid or minimize impacts to wildlife. The workshop concluded with a synthesis of specific recommendations for mitigation measures such as extended elevated highway sections (viaducts or flyovers) in critical points of the Phase 3 of the Pan Borneo Highway Project in Sabah.
Next Steps
Plans are now in the works to further disseminate the Handbook throughout Asia and foster the implementation of wildlife-friendly infrastructure. Future workshops will be held in other countries, and the Handbook will be translated into a few Asian languages following the demand from government representatives in the elephant range states. Through these and other actions, such as providing advice on infrastructure projects, the AsETWG will continue its work to improve linear infrastructure planning to better protect Asian elephants and other wildlife and their habitats.
Top photo: Asian elephants – Adobe Stock
