Guest essay by Eric Worrall
Instead of banning mining on the Amazon, climate activists should encourage managed mining, to help draw CO2 from the atmosphere.
Rainforests can regenerate amazingly quickly on cleared lands – and letting them regrow naturally is an effective and low-cost way to slow climate change
December 10, 2021 6.03 am AEDT
Robin Chazdon Emerita Professor of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of Connecticut
Bruno Hérault Tropical Forest Scientist, Forest & Society Research Unit, Cirad
Catarina Conte Jakovac Associate Professor of Plant Science, Universidad Federal de Santa Catarina
Lourens Poorter Professor of Functional Ecology, Wageningen University
Rainforests are one of the world’s best tools to combat climate change and the loss of wildlife. They store huge amounts of carbon, are home to thousands of plant and animal species, and are inhabited by the indigenous peoples who sustain them. That’s why over 100 world leaders are committed Stop deforestation by 2030 at the recent United Nations conference on climate change in Glasgow.
Many organizations and communities are working to restore primary forests by inefficient or fallow land clearing and implementation. costly tree-planting efforts. These efforts are designed to encourage the return of native plant and animal species and restore the ecological and commodity functions those forests once provided. But in many cases, forests can regenerate naturally without human assistance.
We are forest ecologists and members of a collaborative research network on secondary forest research – species that regrow naturally after an area has been cleared and cultivated or grazed. In one New research published in the journal Science, our team pioneered a forest restoration approach, providing insights from more than 2,200 forest plots in naturally re-growing rainforests throughout the American tropics and West Africa.
Our research shows that rainforests recover surprisingly quickly: They can regrow on abandoned lands and restore many of their old growth characteristics, such as the health of their plants. soil, plant properties, and ecosystem function, in just 10 to 20 years. However, to support effective forest planning and restoration, it is important to understand how quickly different forest attributes and functions recover.
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Our findings suggest that rainforest regrowth is an effective and low-cost, nature-based strategy for promote sustainable development, ecosystem recovery, slow climate change and protect biodiversity. And since forests that regrow in areas that haven’t been severely damaged will quickly restore many of their key attributes, reforestation doesn’t always require planting trees.
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Summary of the study;
Multidimensional rainforest restoration
Lourens Poorter Dylan Craven, Catarina C. Jakovac, Masha T. van der Sande, Lucy Amissah, Frans Bongers, Robin L. Chazdon, Caroline E. Farrior, Stephan Kambach, Jorge A. Meave, Rodrigo Muñoz, Natalia Norden, Nadja Rüger, Michiel van Breugel, Angélica María Almeyda Zambrano Bienvenu Amani, José Luis Andrade, Pedro HS Brancalion, Eben N. Broadbent, Hubert de Foresta Daisy H. Dent, Géraldine Derroire, Saara J. DeWalt, Juan M. Dupuy, Sandra M. Durán, Alfredo C. Fantini, Bryan Finegan, Alma Hernández-Jaramillo José Luis Hernández-Stefanoni, Peter Hietz, André B. Junqueira, Justin Kassi N’dja Susan G. Letcher, Madelon Lohbeck, René López-Camacho, Miguel Martínez-Ramos, Felipe PL Melo, Francisco Mora, Sandra C. Müller, Anny E. N’Guessan, Florian Oberleitner, Edgar Ortiz-Malavassi, Eduardo A. Pérez-García Bruno X. Pinho, Daniel Piotto, Jennifer S. Powers, Susana Rodríguez-Buriticá, Danaë MA Rozendaal, Jorge Ruiz, Marcelo Tabarelli, Heitor Mancini Teixeira, Everardo Valadares de Sa Barretto Samp aio Hans van der Wal, Pedro M. Villa, Geraldo W. Fernandes, Braulio A. Santos, José Aguilar-Cano, Jarcilene S. de Almeida-Cortez, Esteban Alvarez-Davila, Felipe Arreola-Villa Patricia Balvanera, Justin M. Becknell , George AL Cabral, Carolina Castellanos-Castro, Ben HJ de Jong, Jhon Edison Nieto Mário M. Espírito-Santo, Maria C. Fandino, Hernando García, Daniel García-Villalobos, Jefferson S. Hall, Alvaro Idárraga, Jaider Jiménez-Montoya , Deborah Kennard, Erika Marín-Spiotta, Rita Mesquita, Yule RF Nunes, Susana Ochoa-Gaona, Marielos Peña-Claros, Nathalia Pérez-Cárdenas, Jorge Rodríguez-Velázquez Lucía Sanaphre Villanueva, Naomi B. Steininger, Marc K. DM Veloso, Henricus FM Vester Ima CG Vieira, G. Bruce Williamson Kátia Zanini and Bruno Hérault
Tropical secondary forest recovery?
Although deforestation is rampant throughout the tropics, forests have the ability to regrow strongly on abandoned lands. These “secondary” forests can play an increasingly important role in biodiversity conservation, climate change mitigation and landscape restoration. Poorter et al. analyzed restoration patterns of forest attributes (related to soil, plant function, structure and diversity) in 77 secondary forest sites in the Americas and West Africa. They found that different attributes were restored at different rates, with soil recovering in less than a decade, and species diversity and biomass recovering in more than a century. The authors discuss how these findings can be applied in efforts to promote forest restoration. —AMS
abstract
Tropical forests disappear rapidly because of deforestation, but they still have the ability to regrow naturally on abandoned lands. We analyze how 12 forest properties recover during secondary succession and how their recovery is related using 77 sites across the tropics. Tropical forests are highly resistant to low intensity land use; After 20 years, the forest properties reach 78% (33 to 100%) of the old growth value. Recovery to 90% of old growth value is fastest for soil (<1 decade) and plant function (<2,5 thập kỷ), trung bình đối với cấu trúc và đa dạng loài (2,5 đến 6 thập kỷ), và chậm nhất đối với sinh khối và thành phần loài (> 12 decades). Network analysis revealed three independent property recovery clusters, related to structure, species diversity, and species composition. Secondary forests should be seen as a natural, low-cost solution to ecosystem restoration, climate change mitigation and biodiversity conservation.
Read more (with wall fee): https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.abh3629
Those who believe that rainforest logging is a problem have never attempted to control a tropical garden during the Rainy Season.
You have to see the growth rate of the tree to believe it. Mow the tall weeds for one to two weeks. A weed that turns out to be the fast-growing Stealth Eucalyptus, grows so fast that you notice one day you have a tree covering your upstairs balcony, threatening unmanageable, this didn’t work. a few months ago. Luckily I caught it before it clumps and becomes dangerously heavy, and begins to drop large branches on important things.
Plants living in such regions prefer warm, sunny, humid weather – and tropical forests are no exception.
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