objectives early within a planning process (Bruschi et al 2015; Mahmoud et al. 2017).<sup>5</sup> Appendix 8 ( _Mitigation Strategies: Protected Areas_ ) illustrates the opportunities that might be available within CICPEC for locating new protected areas or increasing the enforcement of existing PAs within relatively undisturbed forested areas that are targeted for planned BRI highway projects. Ensuring adequate enforcement is an important component of this conservation strategy, as is illustrated by the encroachment in Snuol Wildlife Reserve, Cambodia, where enforcement was lacking (Appendix 8).

– It is relatively easy to use PAs and IFLs for planning purposes again leaving implementation as critical – for achieving actual impacts because they are relatively easy to designate spatially. However, some of the areas at risk that contain some of the richest, most unique and threatened biodiversity or ecosystem services are outside protected areas. These are particularly important to avoid when siting roads and railways because of their lack of protected status. Appendix 5 ( _Environmental Indicator: Wildlife Effects as Measured by Biodiversity Hotspots and Umbrella Species_ ) provides an example of hotspots for biodiversity which considers species richness, endemism, and vulnerability within CICPEC. Identifying and mapping such hotspots for biodiversity, water provision, carbon storage and sequestration, and other ecosystem services is more challenging than mapping PAs and IFLs but attention to these natural assets early in the planning process can preclude costly actions at a later stage of project development.

Many examples exist in which geospatial modeling and data analysis have been used to assist with the mapping of avoidance areas for linear infrastructure. Most focus on road networks, such as studies of alternative routes in Myanmar, Nigeria, and Tanzania (Caro et al. 2014; Dobson et al. 2010; Fyumagwa et al. 2013; Helsingen et al. 2018; Mahmoud et al. 2017; but see Fyumagwa et al. 2013), showing how route choice can avoid damage to protected areas, ecosystem services, and wildlife migration patterns while still generating high socioeconomic benefits by connecting agricultural centers with markets. Dasgupta and Wheeler (2016) and Danyo, Dasgupta and Wheeler (2018) spatially explicitly estimate the losses that could be avoided within upgrading of roads in Cameroon, Bolivia, Myanmar and Lao PDR.

Similar balancing of objectives could be done for rail projects to optimize environmental, engineering, economic, and other factors. For example, Dong and colleagues (2018) developed an integrated risk evaluation model using ecological, social, and economic data from the high‐speed railway proposed for the China‐Mongolia‐Russia Economic Corridor. Using data on biodiversity, forest cover, protected areas, proneness to fire and earthquake disasters, the authors identified regions within Heilongjiang, Republic of Buryatia, Irkutsk Oblast, Zabaykalsky Krai, and the Lake Baikal area that face high ecological risk from HSR. To avoid these ecologically sensitive areas yet allow social and economic benefits, they proposed alternate routes and policies to mitigate construction risks. In Kenya, public attention to environmental risks from the Standard Gauge Railway led to the modeling and mapping of risks and alternative routes between Nairobi and both Mombasa and Malaba. The goals of mapping and modeling included avoiding wildlife‐train collisions, pollution, barriers to wildebeest migration and more (Ambani 2017). Appendix 9 ( _Mitigation Strategies: Using Umbrella Species for Mitigation Planning in CICPC_ ) provides some examples of mapping and planning in the China‐Indochina Peninsula Corridor to identify key areas for mitigation.

China has experiences with environmental safeguards within the development of its rail network − over 30 years − working in close coordination with international institutions such as the World Bank (World Bank Technical Assistance Program 2009). China routinely does national and project‐level railway EIAs,

> 5 Establishing PAs or IFLs as off limits to road and rail development can be politically challenging because, in some cases, the very fact that they have no preexisting development could make them attractive for linear infrastructure since a government would not have to purchase or expropriate private land and/or resettle landowners.

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