<
https://news.mongabay.com/2024/11/huge-deforested-areas-in-the-tropics-could-regenerate-naturally-study-finds/>
"Cleared or degraded tropical forests around the world covering a combined area
larger than Saudi Arabia could regrow on its own, according to new research
published Oct. 30 in the journal
Nature.
Restoring 30% of the world’s degraded land by 2030 is a target of the 2022
Global Biodiversity Framework, which 196 countries have signed. Much of the
current focus centers on planting trees in these areas. But restoration also
includes allowing forests to recover on their own, a process scientists call
natural regeneration, which can be more cost-effective than tree planting in
some situations.
The
Nature study suggests the ecological conditions are right for about 215
million hectares (531 million acres) of land in the tropics to regrow into
forests. Tropical forests top the list for restoration because once they grow
back, they provide habitat for a multitude of species and at the same time keep
carbon out of the atmosphere where it would accelerate climate change. If all
of the areas identified in the study grew back, it would pull 23.4 billion
metric tons of carbon from the atmosphere in a 30-year period, the analysis
found. That’s the equivalent of more than twice as much carbon dioxide as the
world emitted for energy in 2023.
Study co-author Matt Fagan, associate professor in geography and environmental
systems at the University of Maryland, said the paper’s aim isn’t to present
tree planting and natural regeneration as an “either/or” choice. Both
approaches have their place, he said. But tree planting can be expensive, fire
risk can be a problem, particularly when using nonnative species, and it often
doesn’t support as much biodiversity as naturally regrown forest, Fagan said.
“The nice thing about what we’re proposing is that it’s incredibly cheap
relative to planting trees,” he added."
Via
Fix the News:
https://fixthenews.com/279-breakneck-solarisation/
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
