All data for Sloan et al 2019 Plos OneThe following summarily describes GIS data files produced in for the following article: Sloan, S., Campbell, M.J., Alamgir, M., Lechner, A., Engert, J., Laurance, W.F. Trans-national conservation and infrastructure development in the Heart of Borneo. 2019. PLoS One. References to sections, figures, and header titles below are with respect to this article. These data are free to use for non-commercial purposes, provided that the source article above is duly cited. ------------------------------------------------ Heart of Borneo.shp The boundary areas of the Heart of Borneo conservation region. ------------------------------------------------ ------------------------------------------------ ------------------------------------------------ Intact Forests Currently.shp Intact Forests After Planned Roads.shp Intact forest areas are as described in Section 2.1.4 (Intact Forest Patches). 'Current' patches are those unaffected by planned roads of the Sabah Structure Plan 2033, as per Figure 1. Patches 'after planned roads' are those considered bisected by the planned new and upgrade roads (see 'Roads_of_Sabah_Structure_Plan.shp' below), buffered by 1 km, as described in Section 2.1.1 (Counts and areas of protected areas). ------------------------------------------------ ------------------------------------------------ ------------------------------------------------ Protected Areas.shp These were defined by the World Database on Protected Areas and supplemented by additional ‘totally protected’ forest designations of the Sabah Forestry Department (e.g., protection forest reserves, virgin jungle reserves, wildlife reserves and conservation sanctuaries). See Section 2.1.3 (Protected areas). The field [Int_HoB] notes with yes/no values whether a given protected area intersects the Heart of Borneo region defined by 'Heart of Borneo.shp'. ------------------------------------------------ ------------------------------------------------ ------------------------------------------------ Linages_2km_After_Planned_Roads.shp Linkages are connections of < 2 km long, between intact forest patches defined after planed roads are developed (as described above and represented by 'intact_forest_patches_2km_can_cross_rds.shp). These post-development intact forest patches exclude patches of < 10 ha (see Section 2.2 Intact forest structural connectivity). Linkages merely show which patches are connected to which where 2 km is the dispersal distance specified (Section 2.2). This file is as presented in Figure 6 and Figure S3 of the article. ------------------------------------------------ ------------------------------------------------ ------------------------------------------------ Roads_of_Sabah_Structure_Plan.shp Roads digitised from the Sabah Structure Plan 2033, as described in Section 2.1.2 (Planned road infrastructure development). The field [Type] labels roads by type, as described by legend of the Sabah Structure Plan. The field [Class] is a simplified road classification derived on the basis of [Type]. In the [Class] field, roads that are 'planned new roads' or 'planned upgrade roads' represent the planned roadways analysed in the article, as per Figure 1 and Figure 4. ------------------------------------------------ ------------------------------------------------ ------------------------------------------------ intact_forest_patches_2km_can_cross_rds.shp intact_forest_patches_2km_cannot_cross_rds.shp Intact forest patches as presented in Figure 4. These are as described by Section 2.1.4 (Intact forest patches), excluding patches of < 10 ha as described in Section 2.2 (Intact forest structural connectivity), used to model structural forest connectivity according to two scenarios (Section 2.2): (i) linkages of < 2 km between patches can cross planned roadways, and (ii) linkages of < 2 km between patches cannot cross planned roadways. Planned roadways are as defined above for 'Roads_of_Sabah_Structure_Plan.shp'. These two intact forest patch files are spatially identical but differ with respect to their attribute data, which describes the connectivity of the forest patches, due to the fact that each file pertains to a different connectivity scenario (above). The field [id] presents a nominal unique identification value for each intact forest patch. For the first of the two files above (can cross roads), the field [top15_e2km] codes intact forest patches with a nominal integer value, as per Figure 4a and 4b. Each unique value represents a single network of intact forest patches that are inter-connected with each other by a particular set of 15 inter-patch linkages of highest importance to connectivity in scenario (i), as described below for the file 'edges_2km_can_cross_rds.shp. For the second of the two files above (cannot cross roads), the field [top15Be2km] codes intact forest patches with a nominal integer value, as per Figure 4c and 4d. Each unique value represents a single network of intact forest patches that are inter-connected with each other by a particular set of 15 inter-patch linkages of highest importance for scenario (ii), as described below for the file 'edges_2km_cannot_cross_rds.shp. ------------------------------------------------ ------------------------------------------------ ------------------------------------------------ patch_nodes_2km_can_cross_rds.shp patch_nodes_2km_cannot_cross_rds.shp Centroid 'dots' at the center of each intact forest patch described immediately above, for the same two scenarios (i) and (ii) as described immediately above, as depicted in Figure 4. In both files, the field [top15_edge] codes with a 1 value each node (i.e., intact forest patch as described immediately above) that is connected to another node/patch via those 15 inter-patch linkages noted immediately above and described below, according to either scenario (i) or (ii) as appropriate. The fields [area] and [perimeter] as pertain to the intact forest patch represnted by a node and are therefore the same as in the files 'intact_forest_patches_2km_can_cross_rds.shp' and 'intact_forest_patches_2km_cannot_cross_rds.shp'. The units are in square meters and meters, respectively. ------------------------------------------------ ------------------------------------------------ ------------------------------------------------ edges_2km_can_cross_rds.shp edges_2km_cannot_cross_rds.shp Lines (aka 'edges') depicted partially in Figure 4b and 4d, connecting intact forest patches according to scenario (i) or (ii), respectively. Each edge line features in these files graphically represents the inter-patch connections formed by the much shorter linkages of < 2km, which span the distance between the boundary of one intact forest patch and another, nearby intact forest patch. These linkages are as described in Section 2.2 (Intact forest structural connectivity) Each edge feature represents a single connection between two patches that are connected to each other via a linkage of < 2 km, according to scenario (i) or (ii) (Section 2.2). For each such pairwise inter-patch connection, the fields [id1] and [id2] code the ID values of the two intact forest patches so connected. The field [id] concatenates the values of [id1] and [id2] into a single unique ID field for each edge feature. These values of [id1] and [id2] are those ID vales described above for the intact forest patches in files 'intact_forest_patches_2km_can_cross_rds.shp' and 'intact_forest_patches_2km_cannot_cross_rds.shp' The field [d_IIC_Gr] codes the delta-IIC value of each edge feature. The delta-IIC value is a measure of the connectivity importance of each edge feature, as described in Section 2.2 (Intact forest structural connectivity). The field [top15_diic] codes with a 1 those 15 edge features that: (a) for the applicable scenario (i) or (ii), have the 15 greatest delta-IIC values; and (b) pertain to inter-patch linkages with a distance dispersal distance of < 2 km (Section 2.2). ------------------------------------------------ ------------------------------------------------ -----------------------------------------------Sloan et al 2019 Plos One.zip

The Heart of Borneo initiative has promoted the integration of protected areas and sustainably-managed forests across Malaysia, Indonesia, and Brunei. Recently, however, member states of the Heart of Borneo have begun pursuing ambitious unilateral infrastructure-development schemes to accelerate economic growth, jeopardizing the underlying goal of trans-boundary integrated conservation. Focusing on Sabah, Malaysia, we highlight conflicts between its Pan-Borneo Highway scheme and the regional integration of protected areas, unprotected intact forests, and conservation-priority forests. Road developments in southern Sabah in particular would drastically reduce protected-area integration across the northern Heart of Borneo region. Such developments would separate two major clusters of protected areas that account for one-quarter of all protected areas within the Heart of Borneo complex. Sabah has proposed forest corridors and highway underpasses as means of retaining ecological connectivity in this context. Connectivity modelling identified numerous overlooked areas for connectivity rehabilitation among intact forest patches following planned road development. While such ‘linear-conservation planning’ might theoretically retain up to 85% of intact-forest connectivity and integrate half of the conservation-priority forests across Sabah, in reality it is very unlikely to achieve meaningful ecological integration. Moreover, such measure would be exceedingly costly if properly implemented – apparently beyond the operating budget of relevant Malaysian authorities. Unless critical road segments are cancelled, planned infrastructure will fragment important conservation landscapes with little recourse for mitigation. This likelihood reinforces earlier calls for the legal recognition of the Heart of Borneo region for conservation planning as well as for enhanced tri-lateral coordination of both conservation and development.