ESA - Regrowing tropical forests regain about 10% of tropical forest area lost due to deforestation since 1985

You are probably surprised to learn that there is some serious reforestation going on around the world for decades, e.g. with the Amazon rainforest.

I think, ESA used some misleading or even obfuscating language here, because of their obsession with climate change!

"In brief

A new study reveals that tropical forests recovering from deforestation and degradation only successfully combat a quarter of the current carbon emissions.

In the Tropics, forests that are recovering from human disturbances remove 107 million tonnes of above-ground carbon every year.

Per hectare, the greatest carbon reductions were found in Borneo compared to the Amazon and Central Africa.

The findings demonstrate the important carbon value of conserving recovering forests along with protecting old-growth forests. ..."

From the abstract:

"The globally important carbon sink of intact, old-growth tropical humid forests is declining because of climate change, deforestation and degradation from fire and logging. Recovering tropical secondary and degraded forests now cover about 10% of the tropical forest area, but how much carbon they accumulate remains uncertain. Here we quantify the above ground carbon (AGC) sink of recovering forests across three main continuous tropical humid regions: the Amazon, Borneo and Central Africa. On the basis of satellite data products, our analysis encompasses the heterogeneous spatial and temporal patterns of growth in degraded and secondary forests, influenced by key environmental and anthropogenic drivers. In the first 20 years of recovery, regrowth rates in Borneo were up to 45% and 58% higher than in Central Africa and the Amazon, respectively. This is due to variables such as temperature, water deficit and disturbance regimes. We find that regrowing degraded and secondary forests accumulated 107 Tg C year−1 (90–130 Tg C year−1) between 1984 and 2018, counterbalancing 26% (21–34%) of carbon emissions from humid tropical forest loss during the same period. Protecting old-growth forests is therefore a priority. Furthermore, we estimate that conserving recovering degraded and secondary forests can have a feasible future carbon sink potential of 53 Tg C year−1 (44–62 Tg C year−1) across the main tropical regions studied."

ESA - Recovering forests regain a quarter of carbon lost from deforestation

The carbon sink of secondary and degraded humid tropical forests (no public access)

"A series of USGS Landsat and Copernicus Sentinel-2 images showing secondary forest regrowth near Rio Capim, in the Brazilian Amazon, from 1985 to 2022."

YouTube video