Policymakers often ignore forest regeneration in fight against climate change, research finds
By Stefanie Eschenbacher
Naturally-regenerating forests are often ignored by policymakers working to curb climate change even though they hold an untapped potential to rapidly absorb planet-warming carbon from the atmosphere, scientists write in a new research paper.
These so-called 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, the research published in the journal Nature Climate Change shows.
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.
It comes as companies worldwide are raising millions of dollars to regrow forests from scratch to generate carbon credits they can sell to polluting industries seeking to offset their greenhouse gas emissions.
Secondary forests, on the other hand, are often not allowed to regenerate themselves for long enough to benefit the climate, either because they are cleared or because they fall prey to fires or pests.
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."
Robin Chazdon, a research professor at the Forest Research Institute of the University of the Sunshine Coast, in Australia, who was not involved, said the refined evaluation of the global carbon mitigation potential of regrowing forests had important implications that could shape new climate policy.
Last week, Reuters revealed how a loophole in the Amazon Soy Moratorium, an agreement signed by the world's top grain traders that they would not buy soy grown on recently deforested land, has allowed Brazilian farmers to market soy grown in razed secondary forests as deforestation-free.
The Moratorium, like many conservation policies around the world, protects old-growth rainforests, but not regrown ones. In the Brazilian Amazon, half of secondary forests are cleared within eight years of regrowing, the scientists found.
"The most rapid and largest carbon removal comes from these young secondary forests," said Susan Cook-Patton, a reforestation scientist at The Nature Conservancy, and one of the authors. But, she added, these forests "just aren't often appreciated."
© Thomson Reuters 2025.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Japan Today
2 days ago
- Japan Today
Physicists still divided about quantum world, 100 years on
Quantum mechanics have led to the development of vast amounts of tech, such as lasers or transistors used phones By Bénédicte Rey The theory of quantum mechanics has transformed daily life since being proposed a century ago, yet how it works remains a mystery -- and physicists are deeply divided about what is actually going on, a survey in the journal Nature said Wednesday. "Shut up and calculate!" is a famous quote in quantum physics that illustrates the frustration of scientists struggling to unravel one of the world's great paradoxes. For the last century, equations based on quantum mechanics have consistently and accurately described the behavior of extremely small objects. However, no one knows what is happening in the physical reality behind the mathematics. The problem started at the turn of the 20th century, when scientists realised that the classical principles of physics did not apply to things on the level on atoms. Bafflingly, photons and electrons appear to behave like both particles and waves. They can also be in different positions simultaneously -- and have different speeds or levels of energy. In 1925, Austrian physicist Erwin Schroedinger and Germany's Werner Heisenberg developed a set of complex mathematical tools that describe quantum mechanics using probabilities. This "wave function" made it possible to predict the results of measurements of a particle. These equations led to the development of a huge amount of modern technology, including lasers, LED lights, MRI scanners and the transistors used in computers and phones. But the question remained: what exactly is happening in the world beyond the maths? To mark the 100th year of quantum mechanics, many of the world's leading physicists gathered last month on the German island of Heligoland, where Heisenberg wrote his famous equation. More than 1,100 of them responded to a survey conducted by the leading scientific journal Nature. The results showed there is a "striking lack of consensus among physicists about what quantum theory says about reality", Nature said in a statement. More than a third -- 36 percent -- of the respondents favoured the mostly widely accepted theory, known as the Copenhagen interpretation. In the classical world, everything has defined properties -- such as position or speed -- whether we observe them or not. But this is not the case in the quantum realm, according to the Copenhagen interpretation developed by Heisenberg and Danish physicist Niels Bohr in the 1920s. It is only when an observer measures a quantum object that it settles on a specific state from the possible options, goes the theory. This is described as its wave function "collapsing" into a single possibility. The most famous depiction of this idea is Schroedinger's cat, which remains simultaneously alive and dead in a box -- until someone peeks inside. The Copenhagen interpretation "is the simplest we have", Brazilian physics philosopher Decio Krause told Nature after responding to the survey. Despite the theory's problems -- such as not explaining why measurement has this effect -- the alternatives "present other problems which, to me, are worse," he said. Enter the multiverse But the majority of the physicists supported other ideas. Fifteen percent of the respondents opted for the "many worlds" interpretation, one of several theories in physics that propose we live in a multiverse. It asserts that the wave function does not collapse, but instead branches off into as many universes as there are possible outcomes. So when an observer measures a particle, they get the position for their world -- but it is in all other possible positions across many parallel universes. "It requires a dramatic readjustment of our intuitions about the world, but to me that's just what we should expect from a fundamental theory of reality," US theoretical physicist Sean Carroll said in the survey. The quantum experts were split on other big questions facing the field. Is there some kind of boundary between the quantum and classical worlds, where the laws of physics suddenly change? Forty-five percent of the physicists responded yes to this question -- and the exact same percentage responded no. Just 24 percent said they were confident the quantum interpretation they chose was correct. And three quarters believed that it will be replaced by a more comprehensive theory one day. © 2025 AFP
Japan Today
01-07-2025
- Japan Today
Policymakers often ignore forest regeneration in fight against climate change, research finds
A drone views shows fallen trees in a secondary forest where farmers (not pictured) were in the last stages of clearing land as soybean farming expanded in the Amazon, in Santarem, Para state, Brazil. By Stefanie Eschenbacher Naturally-regenerating forests are often ignored by policymakers working to curb climate change even though they hold an untapped potential to rapidly absorb planet-warming carbon from the atmosphere, scientists write in a new research paper. These so-called 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, the research published in the journal Nature Climate Change shows. 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. It comes as companies worldwide are raising millions of dollars to regrow forests from scratch to generate carbon credits they can sell to polluting industries seeking to offset their greenhouse gas emissions. Secondary forests, on the other hand, are often not allowed to regenerate themselves for long enough to benefit the climate, either because they are cleared or because they fall prey to fires or pests. 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." Robin Chazdon, a research professor at the Forest Research Institute of the University of the Sunshine Coast, in Australia, who was not involved, said the refined evaluation of the global carbon mitigation potential of regrowing forests had important implications that could shape new climate policy. Last week, Reuters revealed how a loophole in the Amazon Soy Moratorium, an agreement signed by the world's top grain traders that they would not buy soy grown on recently deforested land, has allowed Brazilian farmers to market soy grown in razed secondary forests as deforestation-free. The Moratorium, like many conservation policies around the world, protects old-growth rainforests, but not regrown ones. In the Brazilian Amazon, half of secondary forests are cleared within eight years of regrowing, the scientists found. "The most rapid and largest carbon removal comes from these young secondary forests," said Susan Cook-Patton, a reforestation scientist at The Nature Conservancy, and one of the authors. But, she added, these forests "just aren't often appreciated." © Thomson Reuters 2025.
Japan Today
18-05-2025
- Japan Today
As the Amazon's waves weaken, a surfer fights to protect them
Brazilian surfer Sergio Laus rides the thunderous pororoca tidal bore wave on the Mearim River, in the Amazon jungle, near the northern Brazilian city of Arari of Maranhao state, Brazil April 29, 2025. REUTERS/Adriano Machado By Sergio Queiroz, Adriano Machado and Manuela Andreoni Deep in the Amazon rainforest, the power of mighty rivers combines with the pull of the moon's gravity to form waves that run for dozens of miles. Record-breaking Brazilian surfer Sergio Laus fears that climate change and environmental degradation mean their days may be numbered. One early morning in late April, with a supermoon still in the sky, he trekked dozens of miles through the mud up the Mearim River, at the eastern tip of the Amazon, to surf the country's biggest remaining 'pororoca' and highlight the risk. The two-meter-high muddy waves that formed as the river narrowed between the lush mangroves at the margins amazed him, as they always did. "A wave breaks and dissolves," he said, of ocean waves. "This one just keeps gaining intensity. It's an Amazonian tsunami." Yet the waves were about half the size of what he saw here years ago - and even smaller than the five-meter waves he says he used to ride in the Araguari River further west before erosion caused by agriculture and nearby dams dried up Brazil's mightiest pororocas. "Looking through older pictures, I said wow, look at the size of these waves," he said. "Sometimes I cry," he added, explaining how he missed the huge waves. Laus, who twice broke records for surfing the world's longest waves, fears that sea level rise and droughts fueled by climate change, as well as erosion from farming and dams, are upsetting the balance that unleashes the force of nature he spent years learning to ride. "Nature is very alive, it feels every movement, every interference from humans," he said, adding that he hoped the global climate summit that will take place in the Amazonian city of Belem in November "would bring new hope". The name pororoca means great roar in the Tupi Indigenous language - the thunderous clash between the ocean and the river that generates a tidal bore. As the moon approaches the earth, some rivers are pushed back by ocean water lifted by its gravitational pull. The wave grows bigger as a deep river becomes shallow. Research shows climate change has made parts of the Amazon hotter and disturbed rain patterns that keep the water volume in its rivers steady. Communities near the Mearim River have also noticed the sea reach further inland, creating sandbanks and forming new mangrove areas that block the ocean tide, said Denilson Bezerra, an oceanographer at the Federal University of Maranhao. "We have felt the impact in the occurrence of the pororoca," he said. "But we still lack studies to establish the cause-and-effect relationship." Laus has surfed pororocas all over the world, in Indonesia, China, and Alaska, and he plans to continue searching for new tidal bores around the Amazon, as well as Papua New Guinea and Canada. "There are many pororocas that no one has ever seen," he said, adding that he still dreams of surfing "all the pororocas in the world." © Thomson Reuters 2025.
