Large areas of forests regrowing in the Amazon to help reduce carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, are being limited by climate and human activity.
The forests, which naturally regrow on land previously deforested for agriculture and now abandoned, are developing at different speeds. Researchers at the University of Bristol have found a link between slower tree-growth and land previously scorched by fire.
The findings were published today [date] in Nature Communications, and suggest a need for a better protection of these forests if they are to help mitigate the effects of climate change.
Global forests are expected to contribute a quarter of pledged mitigation under the 2015 Paris Agreement. Many countries pledged in their Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC) to restore and reforest millions of hectares of land to help achieve the goals of the Paris Agreement. Until recently, this included Brazil, which in 2015 vowed to restore and reforest 12 million hectares, an area approximately equal to that of England.
Read more at University of Bristol
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