Research shows that policymakers ignore forest regeneration when fighting climate change

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 found in a research paper published Tuesday.

The research in Nature Climate Change suggests that these so-called secondary forest, which have grown back after being destroyed, usually for agricultural purposes, can help the world get closer to the target of net-zero emission needed to slow down global warming.

They found that young forests consisting of trees aged between two and forty years can remove up to eight-times more carbon per hectare from the air than newly planted forests.

Companies are spending millions of dollars on reforestation to create carbon credits that they can then sell to industries looking to offset their greenhouse gas emission.

The secondary forests are not often allowed to regenerate for long enough, to be able to improve the climate. This is because they have been cleared, or they are prey to pests and fires.

In the tropics they found that only 6% reach two decades of regrowth.

Nathaniel Robinson is a scientist and one of the authors of the study. He works at the Center for International Forestry Research and World Agroforestry. He said that the vulnerability of these forests "is probably due to policy loopholes."

Robin Chazdon is a professor of Forest Research Institute of the University of the Sunshine Coast in Australia. He was not involved with the study, but said that the refined assessment of the global mitigation potential of regrowing forest had important implications which could influence new climate policies.

Last week it was revealed that a loophole within the Amazon Soy moratorium, an agreement by top grain traders around the world to not purchase soy produced on land recently deforested, allowed Brazilian farmers market soy from razed secondary forest as being deforestation free.

Like many conservation policies in the world, the Moratorium protects old-growth forests, but does not protect regrown rainforests. Scientists found that in the Brazilian Amazon half of secondary forest is cleared within 8 years after regrowth.

The Nature Conservancy's Susan Cook-Patton is one of the authors. She said that these secondary forests are responsible for the fastest and biggest carbon removal. She added that these forests are "just not appreciated." (Reporting and editing by Manuela Andréoni, Aurora Ellis and Stefanie Eschenbacher)

(source: Reuters)