Words by Smiley Team
Trees are perhaps one of the most altruistic living things on Earth, offering clean air, protection and shelter, “even to the axe-man who destroys them”, as Buddha allegedly said.
Today, trees are also integral to tackling the climate crisis. As Suzanne Pelletier, executive director of the Rainforest Foundation US told Smiley News: “Forests are a crucial cornerstone holding together the planet as a whole. By capturing tremendous amounts of carbon, these forests are enormously important in mitigating the effects of the climate crisis.”
While tropical forests are so fundamental to all other life forms, it’s vital we replenish those blighted by deforestation. In the last century alone, we have destroyed one-third of the world’s forests, suggesting that there’s much work to be done.
“It is essential to actively protect old-growth forests and stop further deforestation,” said Lourens Poorter, a tropical ecologist at the Wageningen University in the Netherlands.
However, to undo human destruction, a research project led by Lourens has revealed that our best hope is actually to step back and let trees do the work rather than try to resolve the problem ourselves.
He added: “We also notice that tropical forests have the potential to regrow naturally in already deforested areas on abandoned lands.”
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The international research team discovered that forests can naturally restore themselves surprisingly quick, making key improvements in the space of decades.
After 20 years, forest soils naturally recover, regaining their fertility, ability to store carbon and the potential to sprout the same diversity of old-growth forests. The potential for forest plant life to recover takes less than 25 years, and in just over 120 years, species above ground will reemerge with the same diversity as before.
To reach these findings the scientists observed forest recovery in 77 landscapes and over 2200 sites across tropical America and West Africa. They monitored important natural features of each site, to estimate how quickly forests could recover overall.
Forest recovery does not offer a fix to climate change, the scientists also remarked, but it does offer important insights into how we must treat our natural world going forward.
Lourens explained: “These regrowing forests cover vast areas, and can contribute to local and global targets for ecosystem restoration. They provide global benefits for climate change mitigation and adaptation and biodiversity conservation, and many other services for local people, such as water, fuel, wood, and non-timber forest products.”
DONATE: Help restore ancient rainforests through traditional practices by donating to the Rainforest Foundation US.
GET INVOLVED: Find out other ways you can support the Rainforest Foundation US.
