A study warns of the short life of secondary forests
A study warns of the short life of secondary forests
Secondary forests, or those that have grown back after agricultural use, only last on average 20 years, according to a work of the Botanical Garden of Missouri (United States) developed in Costa Rica.
The finding represents a problem for large-scale restoration policies, which often focus on restoring a specified number of hectares each year. But the benefits of restoration depend on forests remaining in time. Instead, as this research points out, it takes more than 20 years for a secondary forest to absorb a relevant amount of carbon or provide a habitat for many forest species.
The work is one of the first that analyzes how long secondary forests persist. "It's important because all our hopes and needs depend on these forests recovering for long periods of time," says Leighton Reid, lead author of the study. "Species conservation, carbon storage and other benefits require secondary forests to age, and in southern Costa Rica it does not happen," he adds.
Reid and his collaborators analyzed aerial photos of Costa Rica's secondary forests between 1947 and 2014. From those photos, they found that secondary forests grew on average only 20 years before moving on to another land use, usually agriculture. The study found that 85 percent of secondary forests were put to another use before they turned 54.
Fragmented forest. (Photo: Carlos Peres)
The research showed that riparian forests and larger forest fragments had less reforestation risk than other secondary forests. Reid says he hopes that this study will lead to greater commitments in the restoration. "Currently, countries are making large-scale commitments without a long-term vision," he adds.
The study focused on Costa Rica because there was data available in high resolution over a long period of time. It was also an interesting case study because of its Payments for Ecosystem Services program and because it is among the countries that made a great commitment to restoration in the Bonn Challenge, according to information from the Missouri Botanical Garden collected by DiCYT.
The research includes the longest time scale, 67 years, and the highest special resolution, of 10 meters, that any other study has done on the persistence of secondary tropical forests. Two previous studies only dated back to 1985 and used lower resolution data. (Source: CGP / DICYT)
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