A pioneering global study has found deforestation and forests lost or damaged due to human and environmental change, such as fire and logging, are fast outstripping current rates of forest regrowth.
A pioneering global study has found deforestation and forests lost or damaged due to human and environmental change, such as fire and logging, are fast outstripping current rates of forest regrowth.
Tropical forests are vital ecosystems in the fight against both climate and ecological emergencies. The research, published today in Nature and led by the University of Bristol, highlights the carbon storage potential and the current limits of forest regrowth to addressing such crises.
The findings showed degraded forests recovering from human disturbances, and secondary forests regrowing in previously deforested areas, are annually removing at least 107 million tonnes of carbon from the atmosphere across the tropics. The team of international researchers have quantified the rates of aboveground carbon stock recovery using satellite data across the world’s three largest tropical forests.
Although the results demonstrate the important carbon value of conserving recovering forests across the tropics, the total amount of carbon being taken up in aboveground forest growth was only enough to counterbalance around a quarter (26%) of the current carbon emissions from tropical deforestation and degradation.
Read more at University of Bristol
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