Discussion
"New maps have revealed the best “win-win” opportunities across the world to regrow forests and tackle the climate crisis, without harming people or wildlife.
The places range from the eastern US and western Canada, to Brazil and Colombia, and across Europe, adding up to 195 million hectares (482 million acres)."
As a reminder: Reforestation has many benefits, but is NOT a substitute for stopping deforestation, or stopping carbon emissions.
" New research by The Nature Conservancy, WRI and partners shows that naturally regenerating "secondary forests" (which have regrown after being cleared by harvests, severe fires, agriculture or other disturbances) could be especially powerful for fighting climate change. It is the first to show where, and at what ages, they can have the biggest impact."
https://www.wri.org/insights/secondary-forest-carbon-removal
Let It Grow
"Secondary forests, which have regenerated themselves after being razed, often for agriculture, can help bring the world closer to the net-zero emissions target needed to slow global warming.
That is because these young forests, which are made of trees between two and four decades old, can remove carbon from the atmosphere up to eight times faster per hectare than forests that were just planted, they found."
But no-one makes money out of staying out of the way while nature fixes carbon.
"Across the tropics, they found, only 6% of secondary forests reach two decades of regrowth.
"It's a constant cycle of deforestation," said Nathaniel Robinson, one of the authors and a scientist at the Center for International Forestry Research and World Agroforestry. He added that their vulnerability "is likely tied to policy loopholes."
“Over the last five years, we’ve seen quite a few global assessments of reforestation potential. They often come with huge numbers, and they often come with a profound lack of ecological understanding. They might be very good at global modeling of satellite data, but they have no understanding of the reality on the ground.”
“When you bring humans into landscapes and try managing landscapes where people live, all of a sudden, this stuff becomes very complex.”
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