The new maps have revealed the best “victory” chances around the world to restore forests and address the climate crisis, without harming people or wildlife.
Places range from the eastern and western United States CanadaTo Brazil and Colombia, and through Europe, adding up to 195 million hectares (482 million acres). If recycled, this would remove 2.2 billion tons of carbon dioxide per year, like all nations in the European Union.
Previous maps have suggested that the largest spaces are easy to have the ability to regenerate trees, but they were criticized to include important ecosystems such as savanna and not to consider influencing millions of people who live or depend on forests.
Researchers behind the new built maps Previous work But I use an intentional conservative approach to highlight these places with the highest capabilities and the least number of problems.
Focus only on closed density forests and excluded areas that have suffered from recent forest fires. The result was a map showing 195 million hectares of the opportunity to re -embarrassment, an area equivalent to size Mexico But up to 90 % is smaller than previous maps. They have made more options that, for example, avoid the danger of social conflict with the peoples of forests, which reduced the removal of potential carbon dioxide to 1.5 billion tons annually.
Maps of re -embarrassment opportunities are very important because re -recruitment of trees is the largest and cheapest option to remove carbon dioxide from the air, but tree initiatives need to focus on the most appropriate areas to increase their effect.
“The reintegration is not an alternative to cutting fossil fuel emissions, but even if we reject emissions tomorrow, we still need to remove excess carbon dioxide from the air,” said Dr. Susan Cook Pateon, at Nature Conservance (TNC) and a new degree author. It was published in the Nature Communications magazine. “I have entered many years of development in the trees in knowing how to absorb carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and stop it in carbon stores, so it is ready to expand now.”
She said: “Since the number of disasters that the climate possesses is accumulated all over the world, it is increasingly clear that we cannot waste time in goodwill, but serious understanding.” ))
“There was a series of well-known studies on global re-modernization capabilities that have reached a large number of high numbers. This new study is the antidote to such forests. The new forests in the least risk areas will remove about 5 % of carbon dioxide emissions for humans every year-but there are no Fort Forest.”
The options created by scientists outside the 195mha foundation map gave three wide criteria: avoiding social conflicts, improving biological diversity and water quality, and highlighting the places where governments were already goals to re -embarrassment, which makes procedures more political.
“There is always a set of values or motives that enter into the way the map produces, and the answer you get,” said Court Fezenmeer, also at TNC and the main author of the new analysis. The Earth area that meets all small standards – 15mha – so researchers hope that governments and NGOs hope to use them Interactive maps To highlight the most appropriate solutions in their countries.
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The focus on social conflicts was very important, where nearly 100 million people live in the 195mha region. “Previous studies have often failed to address how liberation can have negative effects on human luxury, especially for the poor who live in remote rural areas often aim to reintegrate,” says Dr. Forest Flechmann, at the University of Minnesota and co -author of the study.
He said: “These negative effects are more likely when people lack safe land rights, and they depend greatly on the natural resources of food and fuel, and they live in countries where political rights are not respected.”
Removing such places from the map cuts the space of the chances of re -liberation by about a third, but the remaining land will continue to remove about 1.5 billion tons of carbon dioxide annually. These areas were especially focused in the United States, Canada, Europe and Australia, as well as BrazilThe United Nations COP30 Climate Summit in November.
Lewis said that the approach that was taken in the new study is logical: “Whoever wants to see natural herbal lands such as Seringate covered with trees, not black, elephants and other wildlife?
However, he added: “The most conservative map removes the restoration of potential forests throughout Africa and Southeast Asia, due to fears of [land rights] conflict. This risks perpetuating poverty, if investments in nature avoid limited poor countries. Plan to invest in nature to improve local livelihoods as well as benefit from the climate and biological diversity that must be seized, because these often go side by side. “
