Have Indo-Malaysian forests reached the end of the road?

The Indo-Malaysian region harbours some of the highest diversity globally, yet it is also has the highest rates of deforestation. Furthermore some countries have shown up-to a 10 times increase in the area deforested annually between 2001 and 2014. Large-scale forest clearance is preceded by the growth of road networks which provide a stark warning for the region's future as many of the roads established for clearance or infrastructure are illegal and unmapped. In some regions almost 100% of roads were previously unmapped on the global roads map, yet 99.9% of deforestation occurs within 2.5 km of these roads. In Borneo the majority of plantations are on an industrial-scale averaging over 10 km2 in size, whereas most of the region typically has plantations under 1 km2 integrated into a landscape mosaic, though the preliminary infrastructure for industrial plantations are being developed in parts of the region. Within the coming decade most of the region may lose almost all unprotected forests. As some countries have only 2% of their land-area protected this condemns many of the regions endemic species to extinction. Urgent measures are needed to protect a much larger proportion of remaining forest, as this offers the only means to protect many of the regions endemic species.