William Laurance and Andrew Balmford's proposed global zoning map (Nature 495, 308–309, 2013) for road planning would be too crude in scale to be useful for practical, on-the-ground decisions.

Positive outcomes for biodiversity from road building are more likely to be achieved in a local context. Decisions about road developments are not made on a global scale, and rarely even on a national level.

Any road planned with environmental and social considerations in mind is better than one designed without them. But decision-makers should not shift their focus too far from the major problems that proposed roads might create.