Transboundary conservation hotspots in China and potential impacts of the belt and road initiative

Aim: Biodiversity hotspots often span international borders, thus conservation efforts must as well. China is one of the most biodiverse countries and the length of its international land borders is the longest in the world; thus, there is a strong need for transboundary conservation. We identify China's transboundary conservation hotspots and analyse the potential effects of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) on them to provide recommendations for conservation actions. Location: China, Asia. Methods: We compiled a species list of terrestrial vertebrates that span China's borders. Using their distribution, we extracted the top 30% of the area with the highest richness value weighted by Red List category and considered these transboundary hotspots for conservation priority. Then we analysed protected area (PA) coverage and connectivity to identify conservation gaps. To measure potential impact of the BRI, we counted the species whose distribution range is traversed by the BRI, and calculated the aggregation index, proportion of natural land and night light index along its routes. Results: We identified 1964 terrestrial vertebrate species living in the border region. We identified four transboundary hotspots and found insufficient PA coverage and low connectivity in three of them. The BRI routes intersected all four hotspots and traversed 82.4% (1619/1964) of the transboundary species, half of which (918) are sensitive to the potential risks brought by the BRI. Night light index increased generally along the BRI. However, the proportion of natural land and the aggregation index near the BRI showed different trends in hotspots. Main Conclusions: There is an urgent need for conservation action in China's transboundary region. The BRI should put biodiversity conservation at the core of its development strategy. Furthermore, we suggest using the planned BRI as a platform for dialogue and consultation, knowledge and data sharing, and joint planning to promote transboundary conservation.