Mongabay Newscast

Mongabay Explores is an episodic podcast series that highlights unique places and species from around the globe. Subscribe to the show wherever you get podcasts and stay tuned for subsequent episodes in this season. Spanning over 4,000 kilometers (2,500 miles) and being built over the course of decades, the Trans-Papua Highway cuts across the entire length of Indonesian New Guinea’s two provinces, including 7 key protected areas. While the project is nearly complete, experts warn it will cost billions annually to maintain, and threaten to open up untouched rainforest to palm oil expansion contributing an additional 4.5 million hectares of deforestation by 2036. For this episode, we interviewed David Gaveau, founder of The TreeMap and Bill Laurance, distinguished professor, and director of the Center for Tropical, Environmental, and Sustainability Science at James Cook University in Australia. Both experts explained the environmental, financial, and social costs of the project, which runs through Indonesia’s L