As for keeping animals and vegetation safe, so far 12, 000 personnel have gone through quarantine management training.

FORBES: Magazine Article

Extending that principle, perhaps with special bridges that can support local vegetation and thus allow animals the illusion of an uninterrupted habitat, might be a cheap way of letting man and nature rub along a bit better.

ECONOMIST: Road kill

The pan-African Great Green African Wall (GGW), a lush strips of vegetation capable of supporting birds and other animals, would stretch from Djibouti in the Horn of Africa in the east to Dakar, Senegal in the west on the southern edge of the Sahara.

FORBES: Great Green Wall Plans to Stop Sahara

The spread threatens to smother vegetation that is a source of food for a variety of animals, raising concerns about the stability of the ecosystem's food chain.

BBC: Invasive species have a 'delayed legacy', says report

The land will be grazed by commercial animals, including Norfolk Horn sheep and Suffolk red poll cattle, who'll keep the vegetation in check.

BBC: Little Ouse Headwaters Project restores Suffolk fenland

What my colleagues and I are discovering from our own work in Alaskan tundra is that this shift in vegetation cover has implications -- some good, some bad -- for the animals that depend on it for food and shelter.

CNN: Next global warming worry: Thawing tundra