A recent study has showed that over the last 20 years, an area of rainforest the size of France has naturally regenerated.
This is not an insignificant area of land, consisting of 59 million hectares (half a million square kilometres).
What is more, many of these forests are in highly biodiverse areas of the world. The majority of this recovered rainforest lies in the Brazilian Atlantic rainforest (Brazils secondary rainforest, as biodiverse as the Amazon, but having suffered far more destruction by humans), forests of northern Canada, the forests of central Africa and the boreal forests of Mongolia’s north.
Just to note, that while the Atlantic forest is regenerating, a recent article suggests that without significant action the Amazon rainforest will reach a tipping point and turn to savannah in around 2064 on current trends.
Now, these are all good news from the point of view of combatting global warming, however from a more holistic point of view some are more important than others.
In particular, from the point of view of biodiversity loss, Atlantic forest and the forests of central Africa might make the biggest difference. Recovery of the forests of central Africa could boost populations of Gorilla, Chimpanzee and Bonobo species.
These forests recovery also has the potential to allow many millions of people living around these forests to lift their personal fortunes through ecotourism.
With all the bad news that occurs in the natural world, we must take time to celebrate when the news is more positive.
