topic: Soil Carbon

topic: Soil Carbon

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Fertilizer management could reduce ammonia pollution from 3 staple crops: Study
- Nitrogen fertilizers are applied to crops to increase yield, but some of that nitrogen is lost to the atmosphere in the form of ammonia. Ammonia is a major air pollutant linked to numerous health issues, including asthma, lung cancer and cardiovascular disease.
- Using published agricultural and environmental data, researchers employed machine learning to quantify global ammonia emissions from rice, wheat and corn cultivation at 10-kilometer resolution. This added up to a global estimate of 4.3 billion kilograms (9.5 billion pounds) of ammonia emitted from the three staple crops in 2018.
- The model also revealed that optimizing fertilizer management to suit local conditions could achieve a 38% reduction in global ammonia emissions from the three crops. Optimal fertilizer management and the associated emissions reductions depended on local climate and soil characteristics.
- The model, which utilized machine learning, found that under current fertilizer management practices, climate change will increase ammonia emissions from rice, wheat and corn by up to 15.8% by 2100. But this increase could be entirely offset by optimizing fertilizer management and adapting it to local conditions.

Breadfruit’s low carbon storage could be offset by fast growth, study finds
- Breadfruit, a perennial tropical tree that produces large, carbohydrate-rich fruit, has been put forward by advocates as a climate solution as well as a way to strengthen food security; but the carbon storage potential of breadfruit has never before been investigated.
- In a new study, researchers from the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa found that in orchards, breadfruit’s carbon storage abilities are relatively low compared with other broadleaf trees in wet environments.
- However, the authors say breadfruit compensates for this with a fast growth rate and may be better served as building blocks for agroforestry plots that can sequester even more CO₂; more research is required to understand the full potential of breadfruits in a sustainable system.

U.S. natural gas expansion would surrender world to fatal warming, experts say
- The United States is planning a major expansion of its export infrastructure for liquified natural gas (LNG), a fossil fuel mostly containing methane. Public outcry in the U.S. over the risk to the global climate forced U.S. President Joe Biden to pause the LNG permitting process for reconsideration in January.
- However, the U.S. continues investing billions in new LNG infrastructure abroad. Scientists and climate activists around the globe are warning that LNG expansion renders U.S. climate commitments unreachable, locks in fossil fuel emissions for decades and could trigger catastrophic warming.
- LNG emits more than coal when exported due to massive leaks of methane into the atmosphere during oceanic transport, a preprint study has found. Another report estimates that emissions from planned U.S. LNG exports, if all 12 facilities are approved, would total 10% of the world’s current greenhouse gas emissions.
- Climate impacts around the world would be severe, scientists say. Drought in Europe, for example, is already leading to higher food and energy prices, creating conditions for poverty even in developed nations, while a tipping point in the Amazon Rainforest could lead to mass deaths due to extreme heat and humidity.

Freeze on Russian collaboration disrupts urgently needed permafrost data flow
- Accelerating Arctic warming threatens to thaw more and more carbon-rich permafrost and release vast amounts of greenhouse gases into the Earth’s atmosphere, but scientists don’t know when such a tipping point event might occur.
- The potential for large and abrupt permafrost emissions adds urgency to better understanding the factors that could turn permafrost from a carbon sink into a carbon source.
- However, more than half of all Arctic permafrost lies under Russian soil, and a two-year freeze on collaborations between Russian scientists and the international scientific community — prompted by the Russian invasion of Ukraine on Feb. 24, 2022 — is disrupting data flows and hamstringing the polar research community.
- Despite an uncertain geopolitical landscape, scientists are determined to close the data gap with work-arounds such as pivoting to “proxy” field sites, ramping up remote sensing with AI, and mining archived data for new insights. But reintegrating Russian research with other Arctic research is a priority of the scientific community.

Agricultural nitrogen pollution is global threat, but circular solutions await
- Nitrogen is an essential element for living organisms, needed to build DNA, proteins and chlorophyll. Although nitrogen makes up nearly 80% of the air we breathe, it’s availability to plants and animals is extremely limited. As a result, nitrogen has been a limiting factor in crop growth since the dawn of agriculture,
- Humanity shattered those limits with the Haber-Bosch process to make ammonia and synthetic fertilizers, driven by fossil fuels, and now used in vast amounts on crops. But that nitrogen influx has disrupted Earth’s natural nitrogen cycle. Today, nitrogen pollution is causing overshoot of several planetary boundaries.
- Nitrates pollute waterways, causing eutrophication. Nitrous oxide is a powerful greenhouse gas and an ozone-depleting substance. Ammonia is a cause of air pollution, with severe health impacts. Nitrogen is also used to produce potentially long-lived synthetic substances that themselves can become pollutants.
- Better agricultural management and technology could cut a third or more of nitrogen pollution. Circular economy solutions include better fertilizer efficiency, enhanced natural nitrogen fixation, and recovery and reuse of wasted nitrogen. Societal changes are also needed, including a shift in human diet away from meat.

Some hemp with your wine? Study shows better soil, potentially flavors from intercropping
- A new study tests whether hemp is an effective plant for intercropping between wine grapes to increase soil health and potentially add another cash crop to vineyards.
- Vintners planted hemp with other cover crops on a vineyard in New Zealand, and found that while hemp was a robust grower, it didn’t compete with grape vines for water, even in dry conditions.
- Surprisingly, the wine made from grapes grown near hemp had a delicious, complex flavor profile, but researchers say more tests are needed to see if hemp was the driving factor.
- The researchers plan to investigate further whether hemp is an effective plant for intercropping to improve vineyard soil health and carbon storage.

Circular economy poised to go beyond outdated oil, gas and coal, experts say
- The exploitation of oil, gas and coal is now destabilizing all nine planetary boundaries and driving a triple crisis of climate change, biodiversity loss and pollution. The solution, experts say, is to move from a hydrocarbon-based linear economy to a diversified circular economy. This is Part 3 of a three-part miniseries.
- To step back from dangerous environmental thresholds, humanity needs to cut its use of fossil fuels, petroleum-based synthetic fertilizers and petrochemicals (especially plastics), with many analysts unequivocal about the unlikelihood of utilizing oil, gas and coal resources to implement a global circular economy.
- To achieve a circular economy, fossil fuels need to be phased out and alternative energy sources put in place. Bio-fertilizers need to be adopted and scaled up, and nitrogen fertilizers must be managed better to prevent overuse. Plastic production needs to be curbed, with a ban of single-use plastics as a start.
- Unfortunately, the world isn’t on target to achieve any of these goals soon, with surging oil and natural gas production by the U.S., Saudi Arabia and Russia expected to push the planet past the maximum 2° C (3.6° F) temperature increase agreed to in the 2015 Paris Accord — putting Earth at risk of climate catastrophe.

Beyond Climate: Fossil fuels rapidly eroding Earth’s ‘safe operating space’
- This exclusive three-part Mongabay mini-series explores how the oil, natural gas and coal industry are destabilizing nine vital Earth systems, which create a “safe operating space” for humanity and other life on the planet.
- The first story in the series examined some of the direct detrimental impacts of fossil fuels, petroleum-based agrochemicals and petrochemicals (such as plastics) on climate change, biodiversity loss, nitrogen pollution of the world’s oceans and other forms of pollution.
- This story looks at the direct and indirect impacts that hydrocarbon production is having as it destabilizes Earth’s freshwater systems; influences rapid land use change; pollutes air, land and water; potentially contributes to ozone layer decay; and ultimately impacts life on Earth.
- Scientists say humanity’s actions — inclusive of burning fossil fuels and producing petrochemical and agrochemical products — has already pushed Earth into the danger zone, overshooting six of nine critical planetary boundaries. Unless we pull back from these violated thresholds, life as we know it is at risk.

Beyond climate: Oil, gas and coal are destabilizing all 9 planetary boundaries
- It’s well known that the fossil fuel industry made the industrial age possible and raised much of humanity’s living standard, while also causing the current climate crisis. Less known is how oil, gas and coal are destabilizing other vital Earth operating systems — impacting every biome. This is Part 1 of a three-part exclusive Mongabay miniseries.
- Scientists warned this year that, of the nine identified planetary boundaries, humanity has now overshot safe levels for six — climate change, biosphere integrity, land system change, novel entities (pollution), biogeochemical flows of nitrogen and freshwater change.
- Fossil fuels, petroleum-based agrochemicals and petrochemicals (including plastics) are now significantly contributing to the destabilization of all nine planetary boundaries, based on the review of numerous scientific studies and on the views expressed by dozens of researchers interviewed by Mongabay for this article.
- According to multiple experts, if humanity doesn’t find alternative energy sources and phase out fossil fuels, agrochemicals and petrochemicals, then their production will continue driving the climate crisis; polluting the atmosphere, water and land; creating deoxygenated kill zones in the world’s oceans; and poisoning wildlife and people.

Battling desertification: Bringing soil back to life in semiarid Spain
- Southeastern Spain is experiencing the northward advance of the Sahara Desert, leading to declining rainfall, soil degradation, and climate change-induced droughts, threatening agricultural lands that have been farmed for many centuries.
- Local farmers recently began adopting regenerative agriculture practices to better withstand long, persistent droughts punctuated by torrential rains and subsequent runoff.
- Many farmers in the region have formed a collaborative group called Alvelal to address encroaching desertification, depopulation, and the lack of opportunities for youth.
- Alvelal members manage more than 15,000 hectares (37,000 acres) of farmland using regenerative agriculture techniques and aim to expand further, conserving more farmland against the onslaught of climate change, while restoring natural corridors and promoting biodiversity.

Machine learning helps researchers identify underground fungal networks
- Researchers are using remote-sensing technology and machine-learning algorithms to map and predict the presence of mycorrhizal fungi in ecosystems around the world.
- The Society for the Protection of Underground Networks (SPUN) is an initiative that aims to map the distribution of fungal networks to spread awareness and advocate for their protection.
- Mycorrhizal fungi form symbiotic relationships with plants, serving as a vital interface for transferring water and nutrients from the soil while also storing massive amounts of carbon underground.
- SPUN is also working to provide financial and technical support to researchers and local communities to help them map fungal networks in their home countries.

Funding circularity: Investing in Asia’s circular economy business models
- As global raw material consumption soars and pollution skyrockets, the need to transition from a consumptive linear economy to a circular one — centering on reduced resource extraction and reuse and recycling to achieve zero waste — has grown more urgent. But paying for that transition poses many challenges.
- Circulate Capital is a Singapore-based investment management firm that finds and funds companies in emerging economies that are developing innovative circular economy business models.
- The company currently invests in companies in South and Southeast Asia that have come up with effective solutions to prevent plastic waste from reaching the ocean. It’s also looking to expand to Latin America.
- “It’s a whole way of creating value that decouples the extraction of resources from the environment and finding ways of making those resources more productive,” Ellen Martin, chief impact officer at Circulate Capital, told Mongabay.

The circular economy: Sustainable solutions to solve planetary overshoot?
- The current linear production and consumption economic model — labeled by critics as “take-make-waste” — is taking a heavy global environmental toll. The intensive use of primary resources and overconsumption are closely linked to climate change, biodiversity loss, large-scale pollution and land-use change.
- Experts and advocates argue that a circular economy model — revolving around reduced material use, reuse and recycling at its simplest — offers a potential route to achieving zero waste, reversing environmental harm and increasing sustainability of products and supply chains.
- In the absence of a firm definition, many interpretations of the circular economy exist. To be sustainable, circular economy solutions should be underpinned by renewable energy sources, reduction of material extraction, reduced consumption, and the regeneration of nature, according to researchers.
- Caution is needed, warn some, as not every circular solution is sustainable. Other experts state that to achieve its goals, the circular economy must include societal level change and go far beyond simply recycling or improving supply chains. How this economic model works will also look differently for nations across the globe.

Climate emergency may channel millions in resources toward corn-based ethanol in the Amazon
- An agribusiness magnate from the U.S., who is already the biggest producer of corn-based ethanol in Brazil, plans to leverage “green” investments from governments and banks to meet negative carbon emissions using an unproven method.
- His company is trying to implement in the Brazilian state of Mato Grosso a copy of his Midwest Carbon project, an initiative that plans to capture 12 million tons of carbon in ethanol plants and store them in North Dakota, below ground.
- Even though the company alleges that it is rigorously controlling the environmental practices of its corn suppliers in Brazil, an investigation found that the local executives are themselves connected to illegal deforestation in Mato Grosso.

Sounds of the soil: A new tool for conservation?
- Researchers are discovering that listening to the soil can be a way to understand biodiversity belowground without having to overturn every bit of the land.
- Studies have shown that soils of restored forest areas have both more complex sounds and more critters than soils of degraded sites.
- Soils of intensively managed agricultural lands, also appear to be quieter, indicating that soil sounds could be a proxy for soil health.
- Some researchers are also using sounds to identify distinct species in the soil, which could open up lots of possibilities for both pest management and wildlife conservation.

Microbes play leading role in soil carbon capture, study shows
- Soil is a significant carbon reservoir, storing more carbon than all plants, animals and the atmosphere combined, making it crucial for addressing the climate crisis.
- Microbes, such as bacteria and fungi, are the primary drivers of carbon storage in soil, surpassing other soil processes by a factor of four, according to a new study in Nature.
- The efficiency of microbial metabolism plays a vital role in determining the amount of organic carbon stored in soils worldwide, according to the research, which also calls for improved soil carbon models for effective policies and climate solutions.
- Enhancing microbial efficiency can lead to increased carbon storage in soils, but further research is needed to understand how to achieve this.

Rare Amazon dark soils could help forest restoration, study shows
- A recent study shows that Amazonian Dark Earths (ADEs), through their high nutrient and microbiological contents, could help to restore deforested areas in the Amazon region.
- Furthermore, these unique soils, enriched with beneficial microorganisms like bacteria and archaea, can boost the fertility of typically nutrient-depleted soils in the Amazon region.
- Building on these findings, researchers plan to further analyze the composition and microorganisms of ADEs, aiming to help restore and conserve the Amazon Rainforest.

Mycorrhizal fungi hold CO2 equivalent to a third of global fossil fuel emissions
- A recent study estimates that more than 13 billion metric tons of CO2 from terrestrial plants are passed on to mycorrhizal fungi each year, equivalent to about 36% of global fossil fuel emissions.
- The study highlights the overlooked role of mycorrhizal fungi in storing and transporting carbon underground through their extensive fungal networks
- Researchers analyzed nearly 200 data sets from various studies that traced carbon flow and found that plants allocate between 1% and 13% of their carbon to mycorrhizal fungi.
- Understanding the role of mycorrhizal fungi is essential for conservation and restoration efforts, as soil degradation and the disruption of soil communities pose significant threats to ecosystems and plant productivity.

Soil carbon in urban parks important in fighting climate change, study shows
- A recent study shows that urban parks and green spaces throughout the world have a similar amount of carbon stored in their soils as in natural regions close to cities, which means urban green spaces can be important to global carbon sequestration and mitigating the potential effects of climate change.
- Soil microbes in urban green spaces play a vital role in carbon storage, but that carbon is also vulnerable to loss through microbial respiration in an increasingly warmer world; researchers emphasize the need for greater understanding of the soil microbiome in urban policies and planning.
- For context, Suriname has 93% forest cover nationwide and is often referred to as the world’s “greenest” country — but the capital city, Paramaribo, lacks a structural approach to urban greenery.
- Researchers conducted a project to promote a greener and more livable Paramaribo, with the aim of mitigating the effects of climate change and raising awareness among citizens.

Protected areas store a year’s worth of CO₂ emissions, study reveals
- Researchers analyzed never-before-used satellite data to calculate how much carbon is stored in protected areas worldwide.
- The Amazon Rainforest’s protected areas accounted for the highest rate of carbon stock, according to the unprecedented study.
- The results can help policymakers and conservationists assess areas for protection to fight climate change — and not just forests.

Overlooked and underfoot, mosses play a mighty role for climate and soil
- Mosses cover a China-size area of the globe and have a significant impact on ecosystems and climate change, according to a new study.
- Researchers conducted the most comprehensive global field study of mosses to date to quantify how soil moss influences soil and ecosystem services in different environments on all seven continents.
- Soil mosses can potentially add 6.43 billion metric tons of carbon to the soil globally, an amount equivalent to the annual emissions of 2.68 billion cars.
- Moss-covered soil offers several other benefits, including cycling of essential nutrients, facilitating faster decomposition, and reducing harmful plant pathogens.

‘During droughts, pivot to agroecology’: Q&A with soil expert at the World Agroforestry Centre
- As the unabating drought in Kenya persists, pastoralists in the region are struggling as millions of their livestock perish and vast swaths of crops die. About 4.4 million people in the country are food insecure.
- International food agencies are calling it a dire humanitarian situation and highlight the vital need to build communities’ resilience to adapt and cope with drought.
- Mongabay speaks with David Leilei, a Kenyan soil biologist at the World Agroforestry Centre, on the agroecological techniques and strategies pastoralists and the government can use to restore healthy soils to promote productive farming.
- Mary Njenga, a research scientist at the World Agroforestry Centre who works with 1,200 households in northern Kenya, also speaks with Mongabay on climate-resilient strategies.

Carbon uptake in tropical forests withers in drier future: Study
- A new study incorporating satellite data on organic material, or biomass, in tropical forests with experimental data about the effects of temperature and precipitation suggests that forests may lose substantial amounts of carbon by the end of the 21st century.
- Even with low continued carbon emissions, tropical forests, especially those in the southern Amazon, could lose between 6.8 and 12% of their aboveground carbon. With higher emissions, they could lose 13.3 to 20.1% of their carbon stores.
- The results highlight the need to reduce global temperatures rapidly to maintain the healthy forests best able to sequester carbon from the atmosphere.
- The team reported their findings Feb. 6 in the journal Nature Climate Change.

Amid global mezcal craze, scientists and communities try out sustainable plantations
- Mezcal, an increasingly popular Mexican liquor, has seen a 700% increase in production in the last ten years, leading to the over-harvesting of wild agave and the expansion of monoculture plantations which ecologists say is threatening endangered bat species and ecosystems.
- Scientists from universities across Mexico are researching how to develop sustainable organic plantations in five states that can meet rising global demand while also benefiting local communities.
- In one of the projects, they are testing over 45,000 thousand agave plants of two native species in agroecological systems to observe which practices best support their growth.
- Because few studies have been done on the environmental impacts of the booming industry, regional studies are needed, says a biologist.

Peatland restoration in temperate nations could be carbon storage bonanza
- Much maligned and undervalued over the centuries, temperate peatlands have seen a lot damage in that time — drained for agriculture, planted with trees, mined for horticulture and fuel. But in an age of escalating climate change, people are now turning to restoration.
- As potent carbon sequesters, peatlands have only recently been given new attention, with active restoration taking place in many nations around the world. This story focuses on groundbreaking temperate peatland restoration efforts in the U.S. Southeast, Scotland and Canada.
- Every temperate peatland is different, making each restoration project unique, but the goal is almost always the same: restore the natural hydrology of the peatland so it can maximize carbon storage and native biodiversity, and improve its resilience in the face of climate change and increasingly common fires in a warming world.

Elephants promote jumbo trees, boosting the carbon stores in Africa’s forests
- The dietary habits of African forest elephants (Loxodonta cyclotis) promote the survival of large, high wood density trees better at storing carbon.
- New research finds that forest-dwelling elephants browse on trees with low wood density, making space for bigger, heftier carbon-rich trees.
- The elephants also act as seed dispersers for these larger trees.
- Cautioning that determining exactly what role local elephant extinctions have played in changing forest composition is tricky, the researchers argue that elephants may boost above-ground carbon storage in Central African forests by 6-9%.

To cut emissions from cattle ranching, beef up the soil, study says
- A pilot project funded by the World Bank in Colombia’s Vichada municipality found that land management techniques paired with the implementation of a tropical grass species increased carbon storage in the soil by more than 15%, while also avoiding the need for cyclical burning of the savanna.
- Improving the productivity of inefficient ranching practices can boost profits for ranchers while combating growing food insecurity in Colombia, say the authors of a recent study documenting the pilot project.
- The study comes amid relative silence at the COP27 climate summit about the role of livestock in climate change: A quarter of all global emissions come from the livestock industry, yet serious measures to reduce or improve these systems are not being discussed enough, experts say.
- Scientists not involved with the pilot project have welcomed the findings but note that biodiversity indicators also need to be measured to compare the improved pastures to natural savanna.

Global study reveals widespread salt marsh decline
- The world lost 1,453 square kilometers (561 square miles) of salt marsh between 2000 and 2019, an area twice the size of Singapore, according to a new study based on satellite imagery.
- In addition to providing wildlife habitat and numerous ecosystem services, salt marshes store a great deal of carbon.
- Salt marsh loss resulted in 16.3 teragrams, or 16.3 million metric tons, of carbon emissions per year, according to the study. That’s the rough equivalent of the output of around 3.5 million cars.
- Climate change is one of the greatest threats to marshes. Other contributors to their global decline include conversion to aquaculture, coastal erosion, eutrophication, drainage, mangrove encroachment and invasive species.

Counterintuitive: Large wild herbivores may help slow climate change
- Large animals, especially herbivores such as elephants, are often seen as being destructive of vegetation, so are not thought of as a nature-based climate solution. Scientists are proving otherwise.
- By removing living and dead plants, large animals dispose of material that may fuel wildfires, which can add large amounts of carbon to the atmosphere; by consuming vegetation and excreting dung, large animals may improve the availability of nutrients to plants and support the storage of carbon in vegetation and soil.
- By creating gaps in the vegetation and dispersing seeds, large animals create diverse ecosystems with plenty of opportunities for a variety of plants to grow, making ecosystems more resilient and better able to deal with climate change.
- By nibbling down polar region shrubs and trampling snow, large animals help maintain permafrost, helping prevent the release of carbon to the atmosphere.

Peat on land and kelp at sea as Argentina protects tip of Tierra del Fuego
- Argentinian legislators recently approved a law to permanently protect the Mitre Peninsula at the tip of South America, which harbors vast peatlands and kelp forests that host an assortment of species.
- The Mitre Peninsula is thought to hold about 84% of Argentina’s peatlands, which are known to sequester about 315 million metric tons of carbon dioxide, roughly equivalent to three years of emissions in Argentina.
- The region also holds more than 30% of the world’s kelp forests, another key store of carbon.

Animating the Carbon Cycle: Earth’s animals vital allies in CO2 storage
- The idea of animating the carbon cycle (ACC) is relatively new. The concept champions the role that healthy populations of wild animals, both terrestrial and marine, can play in boosting the ability of ecosystems to store carbon, helping the planet stay within 1.5°C (2.7°F) of temperature rise over pre-industrial levels.
- But for ACC to be fully effective, humanity needs to preserve and protect intact nature. We also need to rebuild populations of wild animals, including apex predators such as wolves, large herds of herbivores, and invertebrates such as pollinators. By doing so we can help rebalance the functions of natural systems.
- ACC puts the spotlight on oceans too, and the role animals there can play in sequestering carbon. It calls for greater protection of the seas and marine life, allowing whale populations to grow, and protecting mesopelagic fish — the largest group of vertebrates on the planet — from overfishing.
- By looking at the bigger picture of animal-plant-ecosystem relationships, and based on the growing popularity of nature-based climate solutions, scientists believe that now is the time for the wider conservation and rewilding movements to embrace ACC to help animals fulfill their vital roles in the carbon cycle.

Scientists plead for protection of peatlands, the world’s carbon capsules
- As the United Nations Biodiversity Conference begins, a group of researchers from more than a dozen countries are calling for worldwide peatland protection and restoration for the protection of species and because of the vast amounts of carbon they contain.
- In a signed statement released Dec. 1, more than 40 scientists note that peatlands contain twice as much carbon as is found in all the world’s forests.
- As long as peatlands remain waterlogged, that carbon will stay in the soil; but if they’re degraded or drained, as around 12% of the world’s peatlands have been, they quickly become a source of atmospheric carbon.
- The scientists are asking for a more prominent role in international negotiations to address climate change and species’ global loss.

Mycorrhizal fungi, nature’s ‘wood wide web,’ get a $3m conservation boost
- Mycorrhizal fungi connect the roots of plants to the surrounding soil and facilitate the exchange of water and nutrients for sugars from the sun, playing a vital role in the health of terrestrial ecosystems.
- The Society for the Protection of Underground Networks (SPUN), a scientific initiative focused on mapping and conserving mycorrhizal networks, announced it’s received a $3 million general operating grant from the Schmidt Family Foundation.
- SPUN says it will use this funding to map mycorrhizal biodiversity around the planet in biodiversity hotspots and in places that can survive extreme climate events and that have the potential to store large amounts of carbon.
- Among the first expeditions planned is a month-long visit to the Palmyra Atoll in the center of the Pacific Ocean, the world’s most remote island, where the team will study the connection between birds, trees, underground fungi and underwater coral reefs

Protecting the peatlands and woodlands in Angola’s ‘source of life’
- As negotiations over slowing climate change unfold at the COP27 climate summit in Egypt, a group of scientists and conservationists is pushing for recognition of the Angolan Highlands as a vital carbon sink.
- The network of rivers, lakes and peatlands surrounded by miombo woodland in these highlands together maintain the year-round flow of water into the Okavango River Basin, and ultimately the wildlife-rich Okavango Delta in Botswana.
- Isolated for decades by civil war, in peacetime the Angolan Highlands have increasingly attracted returning populations to log, drain its bogs, and clear forests for agriculture.
- The National Geographic Okavango Wilderness Project is pushing for protection of vital parts of the highlands to safeguard their role as a “water tower” for countries in the region — and prevent the peatlands from turning from a carbon sink into a carbon source.

British Columbia delays promised protections as old growth keeps falling
- Two years after British Columbia’s majority party promised a logging “paradigm shift” to conserve what’s left of the province’s tall old growth forests, Mongabay observed dramatic clear cutting on Vancouver Island in forests slated for protection. Old growth harvesting continues across British Columbia (BC) today.
- The BC minister of land management told Mongabay that the government, in partnership with First Nations, has deferred logging on 1.7 million hectares of old growth forests. But critics contest those numbers and note that much of these deferrals are for scubby alpine forests that aren’t in danger of being logged.
- First Nation leaders have been tasked by the government to determine which old growth forests to protect. This presents Indigenous communities with an economic conundrum, as many tribes will lose much-needed logging revenue if they choose conservation.
- Today, BC has many second-growth tree plantations that give the appearance of vast wooded expanses. But as Mongabay observed in July, these tree farms are “ecological deserts” that store less carbon than tall tree old growth and harbor little biodiversity as BC experiences intensifying climate impacts partly due to decades of overlogging.

Niger Delta mangroves in ‘grave danger’ from oil spills, poverty, invasive species
- Southern Nigeria’s vast Niger Delta boasts Africa’s most extensive mangrove forests — and some of the world’s largest fossil fuel reserves.
- Efforts to extract oil and gas have resulted in numerous oil spills, which have damaged the region’s biodiversity, as well as the livelihoods of coastal communities.
- Niger Delta mangroves are also affected by logging, farming and urban expansion, and are being replaced by invasive nipa palm.
- Research suggests Niger Delta’s mangroves could be gone within 50 years at the current rate of loss.

In Congo, a carbon sink like no other risks being carved up for oil
- New research has revealed that the peatlands of the Congo Basin are 15% larger than originally thought.
- This area of swampy forest holds an estimated 29 billion metric tons of carbon, which is the amount emitted globally through the burning of fossil fuels in three years.
- Beginning July 28, the government of the Democratic Republic of Congo, where two-thirds of these peatlands lie, will auction off the rights to explore for oil in 27 blocks across the country.
- Scientists and conservationists have criticized the move, which the government says is necessary to fund its operations. Opponents say the blocks overlap with parts of the peatlands, mature rainforest, protected areas, and a UNESCO World Heritage site.

Can wonder plant spekboom really bring smiles back to sad South African towns?
- Botanists are working on an ambitious project to restore 1 million hectares (2.5 million acres) of degraded land in South Africa that were previously covered by thickets of the indigenous succulent spekboom (Portulacaria afra).
- Farmers have stripped the land of its native thicket over the course of decades of commercial agriculture and livestock keeping, and following extended droughts, it’s now turning to desert.
- Spekboom, much praised for its ability to sequester carbon, is not only a resilient native plant, but its growth naturally promotes the recovery of other species.
- Carbon credits are one promising source of funding for restoration that could prove profitable for landowners and workers, though some critics say planting spekboom as an offset lacks a scientific basis.

Study: Regenerative farming boosts soil health, yielding more nutritious crops
- Researchers compared the nutritional content of the food crops grown using conventional versus regenerative farming practices — those that build the soil by using cover crops, a diverse rotation of crops and minimal tilling
- Food grown on the regenerative farms contained, on average, more magnesium, calcium, potassium and zinc; more vitamins (including B1, B12, C, E and K), and more phytochemicals.
- “Most notably, soil health appears to influence phytochemical levels in crops,” the authors write, “indicating that regenerative farming systems can enhance dietary levels of compounds known to reduce risk of various chronic diseases.”
- The regenerative farms also had overall healthier soil with more carbon content.

Oil exploration in DR Congo peatland risks forests, climate and local communities
- The Democratic Republic of Congo is putting 16 oil exploration blocks up for auction, including nine in the peatlands of the Cuvette Centrale.
- Environmentalists warn that oil exploration and infrastructure for production could release huge amounts of carbon stored in the peatland and threaten the rights of local communities.
- The Congolese government says it needs to exploit its natural resources in order to generate income to develop the country, much as countries in other parts of the world have done before it.

Training on pasture recovery is a win-win for Brazil’s cattle ranchers and forests
- A recent study found that providing Brazilian cattle ranchers with customized training in sustainable pasture restoration could bring long-term economic and environmental benefits.
- Trained ranchers saw an increase in cattle productivity and revenue, and a reduction in carbon dioxide emissions over a period of two years.
- Researchers say that recovering degraded pastures could help stop deforestation for agriculture by allowing farmers to increase cattle numbers without needing more land.
- Despite government-led programs that promote sustainable agriculture, experts say pasture recovery is not yet being fully prioritized.

Trees and soil at the forest’s edge store more carbon than we thought, studies reveal
- Scientists investigated the differences in carbon storage of trees and soils along forest edges versus the interiors of temperate forests in the northeastern United States.
- They found that trees within 30 meters (100 feet) of the forest edge grow almost twice as fast as trees deeper in the forest interior, meaning the edge trees are pulling carbon from the atmosphere and storing it in their tissues at a faster rate.
- In urban areas, soil released 25% less carbon on the forest edge relative to the interior. Worldwide, more carbon is stored in the soil than in all aboveground plants, animals, and the atmosphere combined, so understanding the soil is an important part of the carbon equation.
- While this spells good news for the potential of forest fragments to combat climate change, the researchers made it clear that this is not an argument in favor of creating more fragments as a way to sequester more carbon, stating that “forest that is lost will always outweigh gains made from growth increases in the new edges.”

Traditional knowledge guides protection of planetary health in Finland
- Undisturbed peatlands act as carbon sinks and support biodiversity. Finland has drained 60% — more than 60,000 km2 (23,000 mi2) — of its peatlands, releasing vast amounts of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, and destroying entire ecosystems.
- But scientists and Finnish traditional and Indigenous knowledge holders are collaborating to rewild and protect peatlands and associated forests and rivers, turning them into carbon sinks again, while bringing back wildlife and supporting fishing, hunting, and even tourism, offering economic benefits to local communities.
- These Finnish collaborations are already serving as both inspiration and guide to those seeking to use rewilding to curb climate change, enhance biodiversity, create sustainable land use systems, and restore forest, freshwater and wetland ecosystems, while supporting traditional communities.
- “Rewilding is very much about giving more freedom to nature to shape our landscapes, and looking at nature as an ally in solving socioeconomic problems,” says Wouter Helmer former rewilding director of Rewilding Europe. “It’s a holistic way of putting nature back on center stage in our modern society.”

Stamping out savanna fires doesn’t bolster carbon sink by much, study finds
- Stamping out fires in the African savanna generates smaller carbon sequestration gains than previously thought, an analysis published in the journal Nature found.
- The data from a decades-long experiment in South Africa’s Kruger National Park raises questions about whether fire suppression in savannas can help in combating climate change, according to an accompanying commentary.
- Shrubs and grasses that make up the savanna store more carbon below ground, on average, than forests, which is one reason why fires aren’t as damaging in these landscapes.
- Even for plots in the national park subject to intense fire activity, the researchers found that root and soil carbon stores are largely preserved.

As its topsoil washes away, the Corn Belt is losing yields — and carbon
- Scientists have found that the Corn Belt region of the U.S. Midwest, which produces 75% of U.S. corn, has lost around 35% of its most fertile topsoil since European colonization in the 1600s.
- This was the first study to use satellites and lidar to estimate the relationship between soil loss and the topography of the land, verified by on-the-ground soil samples. Hilltops were often completely denuded of topsoil and soil in low-lying areas was prone to erosion.
- When soil is lost, so is the carbon stored in the ground. Globally, more carbon is stored in the soil than in all the Earth’s plants and the atmosphere combined.
- Bringing soil back to the Corn Belt, experts say, will require a combination of regenerative agriculture and managing farms at the landscape level, planting in areas with high average yield and restoring other areas to pasture or using soil-building methods such as cover cropping.

Small coffee farmers lay their chips on smart agriculture to overcome climate crisis in the Cerrado biome
- A long drought followed by a strong freeze in 2020 damaged the coffee harvest in Brazil, the world’s biggest producer and exporter of the crop.
- Small farmers in the Cerrado region who generally don’t use irrigation because of the area’s historically abundant rainfall were hit the hardest.
- To take on the challenges brought on by the changing climate, coffee farmers in the Cerrado have joined a climate-smart agriculture program.
- The strategies adopted for more resilient crops include agroforestry, connected landscapes, and water resource management.

As climate-driven drought slams farms in U.S. West, water solutions loom
- Drought in the U.S. West has been deepening for two decades, with no end in sight. Unfortunately for farmers, water use policies established in the early 20th century (a time of more plentiful rainfall), have left regulators struggling with their hands tied as they confront climate change challenges — especially intensifying drought.
- However, there is hope, as officials, communities and farmers strive to find innovative ways to save and more fairly share water. In Kansas and California, for example, new legislation has been passed to stave off dangerous groundwater declines threatening these states’ vital agricultural economies.
- Experts say that while an overhaul of the water allocation system in the West is needed, along with a coherent national water policy, extreme measures could be disruptive. But there are opportunities to realize incremental solutions now. Key among them is bridging a gap between federal water programs and farmers.
- A major concern is the trend toward single crop industrial agribusiness in semi-arid regions and the growing of water-intensive crops for export, such as corn and rice, which severely depletes groundwater. Ultimately, 20th century U.S. farm policies will need to yield to flexible 21st century policies that deal with unfolding climate change.

Scientists on a quest to map worldwide web of fungi beneath our feet
- Interconnected bodies of fungi form vast underground networks through the Earth’s soils, transporting nutrients and water across ecosystems and sequestering vast amounts of carbon out of the atmosphere.
- Experts agree that protecting fungi and focusing conservation efforts belowground could help to mitigate global challenges like climate change, biodiversity loss, land use change and pollution.
- A new initiative is embarking on the first global effort to document and map the world’s network-forming fungi, using eDNA and machine learning to identify and protect global hotspots of fungal biodiversity.
- Fungi are increasingly viewed as a nature-based solution to manage global carbon budgets, restore degraded ecosystems, remediate contaminated soils and speed the transition toward sustainable agriculture.

The past, present and future of the Congo peatlands: 10 takeaways from our series

This is the wrap-up article for our four-part series “The Congo Basin peatlands.” Read Part One, Part Two, Part Three and Part Four. In the first half of December, Mongabay published a four-part series on the peatlands of the Congo Basin. Only in 2017 did a team of Congolese and British scientists discover that a […]
Carbon and communities: The future of the Congo Basin peatlands
- Scientific mapping in 2017 revealed that the peatlands of the Cuvette Centrale in the Congo Basin are the largest and most intact in the world’s tropics.
- That initial work, first published in the journal Nature, was just the first step, scientists say, as work continues to understand how the peatlands formed, what threats they face from the climate and industrial uses like agriculture and logging, and how the communities of the region appear to be coexisting sustainably.
- Researchers say investing in studying and protecting the peatlands will benefit the global community as well as people living in the region because the Cuvette Centrale holds a vast repository of carbon.
- Congolese researchers and leaders say they are eager to safeguard the peatlands for the benefit of everyone, but they also say they need support from abroad to do so.

Holding agriculture and logging at bay in the Congo peatlands
- The peatlands of the Congo Basin are perhaps the most intact in the tropics, but threats from logging, agriculture and extractive industries could cause their rapid degradation, scientists say.
- In 2021, the government of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) announced that it was planning to end a moratorium on the issuance of logging concessions that had been in place for nearly two decades.
- The move raised concerns among conservation groups, who say the moratorium should remain in place to protect the DRC’s portion of the world’s second-largest rainforest.
- Today, timber concession boundaries overlap with the peatlands, and though some companies say they won’t cut trees growing on peat, environmental advocates say that any further issuance of logging concessions in the DRC would be irresponsible.

Hold the tree planting: Protect ecosystems first for maximum carbon storage, study says
- When it comes to slowing climate change, there’s one natural solution that has recently gripped the world: large-scale tree planting and reforestation.
- But a new study warns that other natural climate solutions should be considered first.
- By comparing different natural climate solutions against four criteria, the study proposes a hierarchy: protect ecosystems first, then improve their management, and lastly restore them.
- Protecting natural ecosystems offered the greatest climate benefits, fairly quickly, at relatively low cost, while at the same time providing other benefits for people and wildlife, such as reducing the impact of extreme weather and yielding clean air and water.

Layers of carbon: The Congo Basin peatlands and oil
- The peatlands of the Congo Basin may be sitting on top of a pool of oil, though exploration has yet to confirm just how big it may be.
- Conservationists and scientists argue that the carbon contained in this England-size area of peat, the largest in the tropics, makes keeping them intact more valuable, not to mention the habitat and resources they provide for the region’s wildlife and people.
- Researchers calculate that the peatlands contain 30 billion metric tons of carbon, or about the amount humans produce in three years.
- As the governments of the Republic of Congo and the Democratic Republic of Congo work to develop their economies, they, along with many policymakers worldwide, argue that the global community has a responsibility to help fund the protection of the peatlands to keep that climate-warming carbon locked away.

The ‘idea’: Uncovering the peatlands of the Congo Basin
- In 2017, a team of scientists from the U.K. and the Republic of Congo announced the discovery of a massive peatland the size of England in the Congo Basin.
- Sometimes called the Cuvette Centrale, this peatland covers 145,529 square kilometers (56,189 square miles) in the northern Republic of Congo and the Democratic Republic of Congo, and holds about 20 times as much carbon as the U.S. releases from burning fossil fuels in a year.
- Today, the Congo Basin peatlands are relatively intact while supporting nearby human communities and a variety of wildlife species, but threats in the form of agriculture, oil and gas exploration and logging loom on the horizon.
- That has led scientists, conservationists and governments to look for ways to protect and better understand the peatlands for the benefit of the people and animals they support and the future of the global climate.

The complete guide to restoring your soil: Q&A with soil expert Dale Strickler
- Soil expert Dale Strickler’s new book, “The Complete Guide to Restoring your Soil,” covers why we should restore soil, what ideal soil looks like, practices that build better soil, and how to build better agricultural systems.
- The book is peppered with case studies from around the globe, including a section on Indigenous farming techniques, and includes many anecdotes from Strickler’s own life and experiences as a farmer.
- Strickler says many societal ills — malnutrition, disease, conquest, colonialism, warfare, famine, pestilence — can all be traced back to a root cause of soil mismanagement.
- The book offers farming techniques, strategies and practices that can be used to regenerate soil, remediate contaminated soil, and build thriving agriculture systems.

Fighting climate change is a dirty job, but soils can do it | Problem Solved
- The Earth’s soil stores nearly three times as much carbon as all plants, animals and the atmosphere combined, researchers say.
- However, unchecked deforestation, modern industrialized agriculture, the failure to recognize Indigenous land rights, and the continued extraction and burning of fossil fuels are all putting our crucial carbon sinks in the tropics and subarctic permafrost at risk of releasing much of that carbon.
- Experts agree that protecting soil is key to mitigating climate change, and to avoid breaching delicate planetary boundaries that are necessary to sustain human life on the planet.
- Doing so means fundamental shifts in how we grow our food, conserve and restore forests, and swiftly reduce our use of fossil fuels.

Mangrove conservation takes root with local communities on Kenya’s coast
- Mangroves are keystones of coastal ecosystems, protecting shorelines from erosion, providing habitat for fish and other marine life, and storing large amounts of carbon.
- These coastal forests are vital to local communities who have long relied on them for things like food, fuel, and construction materials.
- Kenya has lost half of its mangrove forests in the past 50 years to a combination of factors, including overexploitation by locals with limited livelihood options.
- A variety of conservation efforts in and around the southern city of Mombasa emphasize involving communities in reducing pressure on these coastal forests.

Look beyond carbon credits to put a price on nature’s services, experts say
- Valuing nature as a “new asset class” could be the key to getting trillions of dollars in investments to flow to nature-based solutions, experts said at a recent sustainability conference in Singapore.
- Because policymakers and investors haven’t been able to properly value nature, the finance industry has been using carbon markets as a proxy for investing in it.
- Governments should account for the ecosystem benefits of nature beyond carbon capture, the experts said.
- Proper valuation of nature’s benefits requires inputs from not only investors, but also scientists, communities and NGOs.

We’ve crossed four of nine planetary boundaries. What does this mean?
- The Earth has nine Planetary Boundaries that determine the threshold beyond which human impact on Earth’s systems will put society at risk. We’ve already crossed four of these boundaries.
- Over the past year, Mongabay’s series on planetary boundaries has focused attention on the implications of crossing them.
- Below are some highlights that cover the consequences of crossing four of those boundaries (and solutions to address them), as well as the looming challenges in preventing humanity from overreaching the boundaries we have yet to cross.

Old-growth forests of Pacific Northwest could be key to climate action
- Coastal temperate rainforests are among the rarest ecosystems on Earth, with more than a third of their total remaining global area located in a narrow band in the U.S. and Canadian Pacific Northwest. These are some of the most biodiverse, carbon-dense forests outside the tropics, thus crucial to carbon sequestration.
- “The diversity of life that is all around us is incredibly rare,” a forest ecologist tells Mongabay on a hike in Olympic National Park. “It’s all working together. And there’s not much left here on the Olympic Peninsula or just north of us in British Columbia.”
- British Columbia did the unexpected in 2016 by establishing the Great Bear Rainforest Agreement, protecting 6.4 million hectares (15.8 million acres) of coastal old-growth forest. But elsewhere in the province, 97% of all tall, old-growth forest has been felled for timber and wood pellets. In the U.S., protection outside Olympic National Park is scant.
- New protections are promised, but old-growth logging continues apace. The U.N. says the world must aggressively reduce carbon emissions now, as scientists press the Biden administration to create a national Strategic Carbon Reserve to protect a further 20 million hectares (50 million acres) of mature forested federal lands from logging to help meet U.S. carbon-reduction goals by 2030.

Mangrove restoration done right has clear economic, ecological benefits
- Much research has been done on the impact of mangrove restoration projects, but because such studies typically have their own distinct contexts, their results are not easily generalized.
- To determine the ecological and economic benefits of mangrove restoration across studies, researchers analyzed 188 peer-reviewed articles from 22 regions, mostly in East and Southeast Asia.
- They found the ecosystem functions of restored mangroves to be higher than bare tidal flats, but lower than natural mangroves.
- They also concluded that the economic benefits of mangrove restoration projects largely outweighed their costs, even at high discount rates.

Scientists look to wheatgrass to save dryland farming and capture carbon
- Intermediate wheatgrass is an imported grain that has been grown in the U.S. Great Plains and Intermountain West since the 1930s; but could it be used in marginal fields in dryland areas?
- Kernza, an intermediate wheatgrass bred by the Land Institute, is being planted in eastern Wyoming, where researchers from the University of Wyoming are uncovering whether the crop can help farmers stabilize and bolster their soils, while providing a profitable crop.
- Planting perennial crops, like Kernza, can help soil health and stability, retain moisture, and cut down on planting costs and greenhouse gas emissions from annual plantings.

To save salt marshes, researchers deploy a wide arsenal of techniques
- Salt marshes sequester significant carbon in their sediment — more per hectare than tropical rainforests.
- They protect the land from storm surges and sea level rise, and they shelter a variety of birds, fish and crustaceans.
- However, salt marshes are being lost quickly to erosion and development.
- Governments, institutions and researchers around the world are looking into low-cost ways to protect and restore these vulnerable and valuable habitats.

Mexico devises revolutionary method to reverse semiarid land degradation
- Land degradation is impacting farmlands worldwide, affecting almost 40% of the world’s population. Reversing that process and restoring these croplands and pastures to full productivity is a huge challenge facing humanity — especially as climate change-induced drought takes greater hold on arid and semiarid lands.
- In Mexico, a university-educated, small-scale peasant farmer came up with an innovative solution that not only restores degraded land to productivity, but also greatly enhances soil carbon storage, provides a valuable new crop, and even offers a hopeful diet for diabetics.
- The process utilizes two plants commonly found on Mexico’s semiarid lands that grow well under drought conditions: agave and mesquite. The two are intercropped and then the agave is fermented and mixed with the mesquite to produce an excellent, inexpensive, and very marketable fodder for grazing animals.
- The new technique is achieving success in Mexico and could be applied to global degraded lands. Experts with World Agroforestry warn, though, that agave and mesquite are highly invasive outside their region, but suggest that similar botanical pairings of native species are potentially possible elsewhere.

Soil and its promise as a climate solution: A primer
- We know that soil feeds plants, but do we know how it got there in the first place? Soil forms via the interaction of five factors: parent material, climate, living beings, a land’s topography, and a “cooking” time that occurs on a geologic scale. Variations in these 5 factors make the world’s soils unique and extremely diverse.
- Soil acts as a carbon sink in the global carbon cycle because it locks away decomposed organic matter. But deforestation, various agricultural practices, and a changing climate are releasing it back into the atmosphere and oceans as carbon dioxide, resulting in an imbalance in global carbon budgets
- Tropical soils and permafrost hold the most soil carbon out of other biomes, making them conservation and research priorities in soil-centered climate solutions.
- Reforestation of previously forested lands is a viable solution to return carbon belowground, but it is not a fix-all. Changing industrial agricultural practices and giving high-carbon storage areas conservation status are key steps toward harnessing the soil’s carbon storage power.

Old and new solutions pave way to net-zero emissions farming, studies show
- Agriculture and food account for one-third of global greenhouse gas emissions, making these sectors critical in efforts to address our current overshoot of the climate planetary boundary. They are also having profound impacts on freshwater, biodiversity and biogeochemical cycles.
- New and emerging technologies could pave the way to net-zero emissions agriculture in the next two decades, using robotics, electric vehicles, improved crop varieties and distributed monitoring, according to a new study. Precision agriculture could cut emissions by 71% and help build soil carbon stores.
- A second study reports that microbial protein cultivation powered by solar panels could achieve up to 10 times higher protein yield per unit of land than staple crops like soybeans, reducing greenhouse gas emissions from land conversion and synthetic fertilizers.
- A third report shows that Europe could feed a projected population of 600 million by 2050 with organic farming alone, by reducing consumption of animal products to around 30% of our diet, implementing crop rotations, and reconnecting livestock and cropping systems via use of manure.

When it comes to carbon capture, tree invasions can do more harm than good
- Trees are a logical solution to climate change, but allowing or encouraging trees to move into areas where they don’t typically grow, such as tundras and grasslands, can actually do more harm than good.
- Invasive trees may capture less carbon than the treeless ecosystem they overrun due to soil disturbance, increased risk of fires, and changes in light absorption, a recent review paper shows.
- These results have implications for policies and initiatives, particularly in places where carbon credits have been used to discourage the removal of invasive, non-native trees.
- Land managers need to consider much more than aboveground carbon, according to the paper’s authors, who say that, “Trees are not always the answer.”

On the Mongolian steppe, conservation science meets traditional knowledge
- Rangelands and the pastoralists who rely on them are an overlooked and understudied part of global conservation.
- Tunga Ulambayar, country director for the Zoological Society of London’s Mongolia office, says she wants to change this by complementing the scientific understanding with pastoralists’ traditional knowledge of nature.
- “There is no university teaching that kind of traditional knowledge, but if we really aim to care about these regions and their resources, even from an economic perspective, we need this knowledge,” she says.
- Ulambayar also notes that pastoralism, widely practiced in less industrialized countries, is increasingly recognized as an efficient system of resource management and a resilient culture.

The key to averting environmental catastrophe is right beneath our feet
- Billions of years ago, the first soils served as a cradle for terrestrial life. Today, the land beneath our feet underpins a multitrillion-dollar, global agricultural industry and provides food for nearly 8 billion humans, along with countless wild and domestic species. But soils are in global crisis.
- We are now living in the “danger zone” for four of the nine planetary boundaries: climate change, biodiversity, land-use change, and biogeochemical flows. All four are intimately linked to soil health. Soils hold 80% of all the carbon stored on land.
- Deteriorating soil health is already gravely impacting lives and livelihoods. Land degradation due to human activities costs around 10% of global gross product. When combined with climate change effects, soil degradation could reduce crop yields by 10% globally by 2050.
- There is an inevitable delay between recognizing global problems and enacting solutions, and seeing the resulting boost to ecosystem services. That’s why we must act now if we are to leverage soil ecosystems in the fight against disastrous global environmental change.

Hotter tropics may worsen climate change, reforestation could lessen it: Studies
- Researchers know tropical forests play an important part in regulating the global climate, but there is great uncertainty still as to how various forest mechanisms will work as the world warms in the years ahead.
- Two new studies shed light on the problem: one finds that a hotter global climate could release far more carbon from tropical soils than currently believed. The research conducted in Panama found that soil carbon emissions increased by 55% over two years when those soils were heated by four degrees Celsius.
- However, more research is needed to see if such large losses would be maintained over time, as well as what future results might be in other tropical forests and soils around the world.
- In another study conducted in Malaysia, scientists determined that active restoration of degraded tropical forests could be a key tool for lowering atmospheric CO2 concentrations, potentially curbing climate change and helping moderate global temperatures.

Experts question integrity of Indonesia’s claim of avoided deforestation
- The $103.8 million is payment for 20.3 million tons of avoided emissions from 2014-2016, but observers, including on the GCF board, have questioned the way the Indonesian government arrived at that figure.
- Among the contentious points: a reference level that may be inflated, possible double counting, and persistent state neglect of Indigenous rights.
- The government says the process was transparent, and may be eligible for even more funding once it starts accounting for peatland fires in its baseline calculations.

In the Scottish moorlands, plots planted with trees stored less carbon than untouched lands: Study
- In the Scottish moorlands, experimental areas planted with native trees actually stored less carbon after several decades than untouched plots covered in heather.
- These results are of direct relevance to current policies that promote tree planting under the logic that trees remove carbon from the atmosphere and lock it in their biomass as they grow. This is true, but disregards the role of soil.
- Globally, more carbon is stored in soil than in all the Earth’s plants and the atmosphere combined.
- Planting trees in areas that have never been forested, a practice known as afforestation, can release these carbon stores, resulting in a net loss of carbon from the ecosystem.

Mangrove collapse ‘inevitable’ unless emissions curbed
- If carbon dioxide emissions are not reduced, mangroves will be unable to keep up with the resulting rise in sea levels and they could start drowning by 2050, according to new study in the journal Science.
- Researchers base their findings on the fate of mangroves from 10,000 years ago, when glacial melting made sea levels rise.

Indonesia fires emitted double the carbon of Amazon fires, research shows
- Forest fires that swept across Indonesia this year emitted nearly twice the amount of greenhouse gases as the fires that razed parts of the Brazilian Amazon, new research shows.
- The Indonesian fires pumped at least 708 million tons of carbon dioxide equivalent (CO2e) in the atmosphere, largely as a result of burning of carbon-rich peatlands.
- The fires were the most intense since 2015 and threaten to set back Indonesia’s commitments to reduce its carbon emissions and contribute to global efforts to slow climate change.

$65 million deal to protect Congo’s forests raises concerns
- The Central African Forest Initiative negotiated a deal with the Republic of Congo for $65 million in funding.
- The aim of the initiative is to protect forest while encouraging economic development.
- But environmental organizations criticized the timing and the wording of the agreement, which they argue still allows for oil drilling and exploration that could harm peatlands and forest.
- Two companies in the Republic of Congo recently found oil beneath the peatlands that could nearly triple the Central African country’s daily production.

’Green’ bonds finance industrial tree plantations in Brazil
- The Environmental Paper Network (EPN), a group of some 140 NGOs with the goal of making the pulp and paper industry more sustainable, released a briefing contending that green or climate bonds issued by Fibria, a pulp and paper company, went to maintaining and expanding plantations of eucalyptus trees.
- The report suggests that the Brazilian company inflated the amount of carbon that new planting would store.
- The author of the briefing also questions the environmental benefits of maintaining industrial monocultures of eucalyptus, a tree that requires a lot of water along with herbicides, pesticides and fertilizer that can impact local ecosystems and human communities.

Deforestation diminishes access to clean water, study finds
- A recent study compared deforestation data and information on household access to clean water in Malawi.
- The scientists found that the country lost 14 percent of its forest between 2000 and 2010, which had the same effect on access to safe drinking water as a 9 percent decrease in rainfall.
- With higher rainfall variability expected in today’s changing climate, the authors suggest that a larger area of forest in countries like Malawi could be a buffer against the impacts of climate change.

European Parliament to vote on timber legality agreement with Vietnam
- The European Parliament begins debate March 11 on a resolution to consent to the recently signed Voluntary Partnership Agreement (VPA) with Vietnam on the trade of timber and timber products from the Southeast Asian country.
- The VPA is the result of nearly eight years of negotiations aimed at stopping the flow of illegally harvested timber into the EU.
- Members of parliament are expected to vote in favor of the resolution on March 12, though officials in the EU and outside observers have voiced concerns about the legality of the wood imported into Vietnam from other countries, such as the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Forest soils take longer to recover from fires and logging than previously thought
- Australian National University’s Elle Bowd led a research team that collected 729 soil cores from 81 sites in the mountain ash forests of southeast Australia. The sampling sites had been subjected to nine different types of disturbances, from wildfires to clearcutting and post-fire salvage logging, at different frequencies in the past.
- The team used the soil samples to look at 22 different soil measures, including key soil nutrients like nitrate, organic carbon, phosphorus, potassium, and sulfur, and how they’d been impacted by disturbances that occurred 8, 34, 78, and 167 years ago.
- Bowd said the team’s findings show that forest soils recover from disturbances slowly over many years — up to 80 years following a wildfire and as many as 30 years after logging, much longer than previously thought.

Policymakers are not adequately factoring land use and human diets into climate mitigation strategies: Study
- A recent study finds that governments and researchers routinely underestimate the potential for changes to land use and human diets to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and mitigate the impacts of global warming.
- Published in Nature last month, the research suggests that policymakers are not adequately accounting for the amount of carbon that could be stored in forests and other natural vegetation if those lands weren’t used for producing food, and are also failing to recognize the carbon emissions that will result from increased agricultural production.
- According to the study’s lead author, Tim Searchinger, a research scholar at Princeton University and a senior fellow at the World Resources Institute, these oversights on the part of climate policymakers are particularly crucial because successfully mitigating climate change will require more carbon be stored in forests and other native vegetation, even while the world will have to produce as much as 50 percent more food every year in order to feed the growing global population.

US could cut emissions more than one-fifth through ‘natural climate solutions’ like reforestation
- A new study looks at the natural solutions that could help the US do its part to keep global warming below 2 degrees Celsius (approximately 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit), the goal adopted by the 195 countries who signed the Paris Climate Agreement in December 2015.
- Researchers analyzed 21 natural climate solutions and found that all of them combined could reduce global warming emissions by an amount equivalent to about 21 percent of US net emissions in 2016.
- Of the 21 natural solutions the researchers studied, increased reforestation efforts had the largest carbon storage potential, equivalent to keeping 65 million passenger cars off the road.

‘Guardians of the forest:’ Indigenous peoples come together to assert role in climate stability
- A half mile from the din of the Global Climate Action Summit and its 4,000 attendees in San Francisco, indigenous peoples from around the world came together in a small space for a kind of summit of their own.
- They spoke different languages. They wore unique clothing. But the tenor of their voices and the expressions on their faces conveyed a similar message: They are the “guardians of the forests,” not their national governments. As such, they have a vital role to play in the battle against climate change.
- NGOs and human rights organizations, including the United Nations, have advocated better treatment of indigenous peoples the world over as a matter of social justice. They have recently seized on a new angle to achieve the same goals: if tropical countries are to meet their carbon-reduction commitments under the Paris Agreement, indigenous peoples can contribute significantly. But they must be better protected and given title and tenure to the lands where they have lived for centuries.

Scientists uncover what makes deep soil either a carbon sink or source
- Researchers say they have discovered the conditions that determine whether deep soil acts as a source of carbon emissions, releasing heat-trapping greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, or as a sink, sequestering the carbon and keeping it from contributing to global climate change.
- It’s estimated that as much as 2,400 gigatons of carbon is stored in soil and that two-thirds of that carbon lies at a depth greater than 20 centimeters — meaning that there is enough deep soil carbon in the world to double the amount of carbon dioxide currently in Earth’s atmosphere.
- Soil organic carbon results from the decomposition of plant matter and can stay locked up in soil for thousands of years. But if below-ground decomposition rates increase due to climate change, the carbon stored in deep soil could be released into the atmosphere as carbon dioxide.

Common ground on the prairie (commentary)
- Good stewardship of our native grasslands is one of the best ways to survive the next weather event. Grasses are rooted in the ground, which enables the soil to absorb and retain more water. That, in turn, prevents sediment, fertilizer, pesticides, and other compounds in the soil from running off into nearby water ways. And by absorbing and storing more water, the land better withstands flood and drought alike.
- Healthy grasslands also serve as a check against climate change, pulling heat-trapping carbon dioxide out of the air and storing it in the soil. Research shows that improving grazing management practices on just one acre of grassland can pull an average of 419 extra pounds of carbon out of the atmosphere each year.
- This is an important message for the governors, mayors, CEOs and producers gathering in San Francisco for the Global Climate Action Summit (GCAS). There, they will demonstrate the progress the public and private sectors have made in reducing carbon emissions and they’ll set ambitious new goals. Land stewardship will be high on the agenda, as it should be.
- This post is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the author, not necessarily Mongabay.

Why keep Africa’s dryland forests alive?
- Small holder farmers from 6,000 Malian households have restored 320 hectares of land through a combination of on-farm natural tree regeneration, water harvesting, moisture retention technologies, improved soil filtration, and enhanced soil humus.
- This is just one of many efforts currently underway to restore Africa’s dryland forests. There are many obstacles left to overcome, but as the Mali example clearly shows, there are successes to celebrate and build upon, as well.
- In sub-Saharan Africa, 80 percent of charcoal and firewood used by about 2.4 million people is harvested in woodlands found in the dryland areas. Experts say it’s time to start packaging these fragile yet rich and highly adaptive ecosystems into investment opportunities.

Climate mitigation has an ally in need of recognition and land rights: indigenous peoples in tropical countries
- Researchers have released what they called “the most comprehensive assessment to date of carbon storage” on forested lands occupied by indigenous peoples and local communities in 64 tropical countries. One of the main findings of the research is that indigenous peoples are far better stewards of the land than their countries’ governments.
- The study, led by Rights and Resources International (RRI), found that indigenous peoples manage nearly 300 billion metric tons of carbon stored above and below ground on their lands. That sequestered carbon, the study found, is equal to 33 years’-worth of worldwide emissions, given a 2017 baseline.
- The study’s release is timed to coincide with the September 12 opening in San Francisco of the three-day Global Climate Action Summit hosted by California Gov. Jerry Brown and former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg. The connection between indigenous rights and environmental protection is expected to be a summit highlight.

When it comes to carbon storage, not all mangroves are equal
- Where a mangrove forest grows determines how much carbon gets stored in its soil, a new study has found.
- The study found that past research underestimated the amount of carbon stored in forests growing on limestone or carbonate soils by up to 50 percent, and overestimated blue carbon stored in deltaic settings by up to 86 percent.
- These differences in carbon density among the various mangrove ecosystems come down to the soils in which they grow, researchers say.

Soggier forest soils thwart the uptake of climate-warming methane
- A recent investigation has revealed that the ability of forest soils to absorb methane has declined over time, likely due to an increase in precipitation as a result of climate change.
- The authors of a new study found that methane uptake declined by as much as 89 percent, and a review of the scientific literature demonstrated that the phenomenon was taking place around the world.
- These findings suggest that current carbon budgets may be overestimating the amount of methane, a far more potent greenhouse gas, that forest soils can siphon from the atmosphere, the scientists write.

Nitrogen pollution is choking forests’ carbon-protecting fungi
- Forests exposed to high nitrogen pollution in the U.S. are associated with low abundance of carbon-protecting ectomycorrhizal fungi, a new study has found.
- The loss of these ectomycorrhizal fungi means that a lot of soil carbon is likely being released back to the atmosphere as carbon dioxide, accelerating climate change, researchers say.
- The loss of ectomycorrhizal fungi could also mean fewer mushrooms and loss of potential antibiotics and other important biological compounds.

New research calculates full carbon cost of oil palm cultivation in Indonesia’s forests
- Researchers found that each hectare of rainforest converted to oil palm monoculture creates 174 tons of carbon emissions, most of which will find their way into the atmosphere and contribute to global climate change.
- After oil palm is harvested, the amount of biomass returned to the soil to feed living organisms underground can be 90 percent lower than in a functional, healthy rainforest. Since the soil in oil palm plantations is repeatedly cleared and treated with pesticides, very little natural litter like dead leaves and wood goes back into the ground.
- The research team said that their findings show that figures used by bodies like the IPCC and the RSPO to calculate the carbon cost of oil palm cultivation should be updated and that belowground carbon losses must be accounted for.

New remote-sensing technique used to determine carbon losses in Sub-Saharan Africa
- Research published yesterday in the journal Nature Ecology & Evolution finds that pressures from human activities and climate change caused the African continent to lose as much as 2.6 billion metric tons of carbon between 2010 and 2016.
- The study not only shows that there was an overall net carbon loss across sub-Saharan Africa, but also that substantial losses occurred in drylands — savannahs and woodlands that fall outside of humid zones — which lost approximately 5 percent of their total carbon stocks each year.
- In order to quantify changes in above-ground biomass-carbon in sub-Saharan Africa, an international team of scientists used a new remote sensing technique based on a satellite system that employs low-frequency, passive microwave signals as opposed to the more common high-resolution photography.

Keeping carbon in the ground can cut emissions and boost food security, study finds
- A new paper finds that a carbon tax meant to shift agricultural policies could raise food prices and threaten food security.
- However, improvements in storing carbon in the world’s soils could lessen the potential for worsening food security.
- The researchers suggest a globally coordinated effort on climate-friendly agriculture and land use would likely result in the best outcome for all.

Consensus grows: climate-smart agriculture key to Paris Agreement goals
- Attendees at the annual Global Landscape Forum conference in Bonn, Germany, this week sought approaches for implementing “climate-smart” agricultural practices to help keep global temperature from rising more than 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) by 2100.
- Some 40 percent of the earth’s surface is used for food production, with 400 million small farmers worldwide, plus industrial agribusiness, so policymakers understand that climate-smart agriculture, practiced broadly, could play a significant role in reducing carbon emissions and helping nations meet their Paris carbon-reduction pledges.
- Numerous agricultural management practices to reduce carbon emissions, enhance food security, productivity and profitability, are available now. They include wider use of cover crops, low and no till techniques, increased application of organic fertilizers such as manure, judicious use of chemical fertilizers, and the growing of crops bred for climate resiliency.
- These techniques are already being embraced to a degree in the U.S. and globally. Land of Lakes and Kellogg’s, for example, are insisting on sustainable farm practices from their suppliers, while John Deere is building low-till equipment that allows for “precision farming,” optimizing returns on inputs while preserving soils and soil carbon.

Agroforestry boosts rice and biodiversity in India
- Agroforestry is an ancient agricultural method covering 1 billion hectares globally; it combines trees and woody shrubs with crops to increase food security, mitigate the effects of climate change, and boost biodiversity.
- India has set a goal to increase its tree cover from the present 24 percent to 33 percent of its total area, primarily by promoting agroforestry in croplands.
- In West Bengal, the adoption of useful trees into paddy fields has boosted crop yields and crop diversity, and has also sparked a movement that champions organic cultivation methods.
- Agroforestry has been hailed as one of the top solutions to climate change because it sequesters much carbon dioxide above and below the soil surface.

Here’s a great way to visualize the huge potential of forest conservation and restoration as ‘natural climate solutions’
- Recent research found that 20 different “natural climate solutions” have the potential to reduce global greenhouse gas emissions by as much as 23.8 billion metric tons every year — and that nearly half of that potential, or some 11.3 billion metric tons of emissions, represent what the study’s authors call “cost-effective climate mitigation.”
- The World Resources Institute’s Susan Minnemeyer, a co-author of the study, noted in a blog post that halting deforestation, restoring forests that have already been logged or degraded, and improving forest management could cost-effectively remove seven billion metric tons of carbon dioxide from Earth’s atmosphere every year, which is equivalent to the annual emissions generated by 1.5 billion cars.
- This study joins a growing body of research that demonstrates just how crucial forests will be to our efforts to halt global warming.

Kenyan farmers reap economic, environmental gains from ABCDs of agroforestry
- In Kenya’s Rift Valley, rural communities are implementing agroforestry to respond to new challenges brought by climate change.
- The Asset-Based Community Development (ABCD) program trains farmers in agroforestry techniques that increase their resilience and food security in the face of hotter, drier growing conditions.
- ABCD improves the economic prospects of those who implement it through diverse, year-long harvests and new markets for edible produce and wood products.
- Agroforestry is also a main facet of Kenya’s goal to reduce carbon emissions under the Paris Climate Treaty, since it sequesters a large amount of carbon in woody plants both above and below ground.

New research shows why forests are absolutely essential to meeting Paris Climate Agreement goals
- It’s widely acknowledged that keeping what’s left of the world’s forests standing is crucial to combating climate change. But a suite of new research published last week shows that forests have an even larger role to play in achieving the goals of the Paris Climate Agreement than was previously thought.
- In order to meet those goals, the global economy will have to be swiftly decarbonized. According to a new report from the Woods Hole Research Center (WHRC), by taking aggressive action to protect and rehabilitate tropical forests, we could buy ourselves more time to make this transition.
- Deforestation is responsible for about 10 percent of global emissions, but removing that source of emissions is only half the value of forests to global climate action. Other research shows that planting trees and rehabilitating degraded forests is just as critical to climate efforts as stopping deforestation, because of how reforestation efforts can enhance forests’ role as a carbon sink.

Carbon sequestration role of savanna soils key to climate goals
- Savannas and grasslands cover a vast area, some 20 percent of the earth’s land surface — from sub-Saharan Africa, to the Cerrado in Brazil, to North America’s heartland. They also offer an enormous and underappreciated capacity for carbon sequestration.
- However, the role of forests in storing carbon has long been emphasized over the role of savannas (and savanna soils) by international climate negotiators, resulting in policies such as REDD+ for preserving and restoring forests, with no such incentives for protecting grasslands.
- Scientists warn that the planting of trees, such as nonnative eucalyptus in Africa and Brazil, could be counterproductive in the long term, potentially contributing to climate change emissions while harming grassland biodiversity and altering ecosystems.
- As participants prepare to meet for the COP23 climate summit in Bonn, Germany next week, grassland scientists are urging that policymakers turn an eye toward savannas, and begin to develop incentives for preserving them and their carbon storing soils. More research is also needed to fully understand the role savannas can play in carbon sequestration.

Healthy soils can boost food security and climate resilience for millions (commentary)
- Drylands take centre stage this week as world leaders gather in Ordos, in the Inner Mongolia region of China, for the thirteenth session of the Conference of the Parties to the UN Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD COP13).
- The health of many dryland ecosystems has declined dramatically over recent decades, largely due to unsustainable farming methods, increasing drought, deforestation, and clearance of natural grasslands.
- Changing the way drylands are farmed to conserve life underground is the only way of restoring these ecosystems and the agricultural outputs they sustain.
- This post is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the author, not necessarily Mongabay.

Industry-NGO coalition releases toolkit for making ‘No Deforestation’ commitments a reality on the ground
- Numerous companies involved in the global palm oil supply chain, from producers and traders to consumer companies that use the commodity in their products, have adopted Zero Deforestation commitments — but pledging to address the deforestation and human rights abuses associated with palm oil supply chains is one thing, while making those commitments a reality on the ground is another.
- Companies have said they need more support from governments of tropical forest nations to make their Zero Deforestation commitments a reality, citing a maze of administrative and regulatory frameworks across palm oil producing countries as hampering their efforts.
- The new HCS Approach Toolkit might help address this very issue, however, as it is intended to standardize the methodology for protecting tropical forests and identifying suitable landscapes for the sustainable production of palm oil.
- The revised HCS Approach Toolkit lays out the fundamental elements of a methodology for protecting high carbon stock (HCS) forests and other high conservation value (HCV) areas such as peatlands. Simply achieving “no deforestation” is not the only goal of the revised HCS Approach, though.

Aggressive forest protection needed to meet US climate goals
- Despite how critical forest protection is to meeting climate goals, it is not currently seen as a climate priority in the U.S.
- In fact, the report notes, some government and forestry industry actors even promote increased logging as a solution to climate change, which has led to the forests of the coastal Southern United States becoming the largest source of wood pellet exports to Europe in recent years.
- Forest disturbance from logging in the Southern U.S. occurs at four times the rate that it does in the rainforests of South America, the authors of the report discovered, which is reducing the ability of the country’s forests to act as carbon sinks by at least 35 percent.

Americans live increasingly far from forests — which is a problem for wildlife
- Giorgos Mountrakis and Sheng Yang of the State University of New York College of Environmental Science and Forestry analyzed satellite-derived land cover data in order to look at geographic patterns of forest loss in the continental US during the 1990s.
- The average distance from any point in the U.S. to the nearest forest increased some 14 percent just between the years 1990 and 2000 — a difference of about one-third of a mile.
- They found that total forest cover loss across the country during that decade was close to 35,000 square miles (a little over 90,000 square kilometers), a decline of about 2.96 percent, or roughly an area the size of the state of Maine.

139 scientists shoot down ‘misleading’ reports from Malaysia peat congress
- The researchers issued an open letter in response to certain newspaper articles about the 15th International Peat Congress, held recently in Malaysia, a top palm oil producer.
- One article erroneously portrays an IPC executive as endorsing new studies finding drainage-based peatland agriculture to be not necessarily unsustainable, when the executive made no such comments.
- More broadly, the articles in question portray as fringely held the view that drainage-based peatland development is unsustainable, when in fact it is backed by an extensive body of research and held by a large number of scientists, not just by “militant environmentalists” and “green NGOs” as implied by the articles.
- The articles were published in The Jakarta Post and The Borneo Post.

Soil carbon could be key to protecting global biodiversity and climate at same time
- Worldwide, we’re spending less than a third of what it would take to protect global biodiversity and meet biodiversity targets adopted by the UN.
- Add to that the cost of meeting global emissions reduction targets, estimated to be anywhere from several hundred billion to several trillion dollars, and it’s clear that any way to do more with less is welcome indeed.
- Now researchers argue that, in addition to helping the world reduce emissions, soil carbon can also help determine exactly where wildlife and natural habitat conservation funds would be most effectively deployed.

Study finds soil releases carbon for decades after forests are felled

Autumn leaves in Pittsfield State Park, Massachusetts. Photo by Rhett A. Butler. Soil plays a big role in the global carbon cycle, but how much or how quickly forest soil carbon pools decline after logging is poorly understood. This may have serious implications for how carbon emissions from deforestation are accounted for. The U.S. Forest […]
Earthworms under threat

Darwin’s Worms, Our Worry Earthworms. Image courtesy of the US Fish & Wildlife Service 1st November 1837 was a disappointing day at the Geological Society of London. The men (and they were only men) of the Society were expecting great things from the young Charles Darwin, recently returned from his Beagle voyage. Yet on that […]
Biochar: a brief history and developing future

I said in my recent book that perhaps the only tool we had to bring carbon dioxide back to pre-industrial levels was to let the biosphere pump it from the air for us. It currently removes 550bn tons a year, about 18 times more than we emit, but 99.9% of the carbon captured this way […]
Organic farming keeps carbon out of the atmosphere

Organic farm in Montana. Photo by: Jeremy Hance. With the worst effects of climate change, we are seeing how pollution hurts both human health and the environment but there is good news: a new study shows that organic farming stores more greenhouse gases in the soil than non-organic farming. By switching to organic methods, many […]
Warmer forests expel carbon from soils creating “vicious cycle”

Temperate forest in Gooseberry Falls State Park, Minnesota. Photo by: Tiffany Roufs. As the world warms, temperate forests could become a source of carbon dioxide emission rather than a sink according to a new study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS). Scientists found that two forest sites in the U.S. (Wisconsin […]
What does Nature give us? A special Earth Day article
- Yet we have so disconnected ourselves from the natural world that it is easy—and often convenient—to forget that nature remains as giving as ever, even as it vanishes bit-by-bit.
- The rise of technology and industry may have distanced us superficially from nature, but it has not changed our reliance on the natural world: most of what we use and consume on a daily basis remains the product of multitudes of interactions within nature, and many of those interactions are imperiled.
- Beyond such physical goods, the natural world provides less tangible, but just as important, gifts in terms of beauty, art, and spirituality.

15 conservation issues to watch

Deforestation near Gunung Palung in Indonesian Borneo. Photo by: Rhett A. Butler Deforestation, oil spills, coral acidification: these are just a few examples of ongoing, and well-researched, environmental changes that are imperiling the world’s biodiversity. But what issues are on the horizon? At the end of 2010, experts outlined in Trends in Ecology & Evolution […]
Dapatkah Biochar Selamatkan Dunia?

Sebuah wawancara dengan Laurens Rademakers dari Biochar Fund. Biochar – penggunaan arang yang diproduksi dari membakar biomassa untuk pertanian – mungkin merupakan saru dari revolusi lingkungan dan sosial yang terpenting di abad ini. Praktek yang sepertinya sederhana ini – sebuah teknologi yang kembali ke ribuan tahun yang lalu – memiliki potensi untuk membantu mengurangi sebagian […]
Could biochar save the world?

An interview with Laurens Rademakers of Biochar Fund. Biochar—the agricultural application of charcoal produced from burning biomass—may be one of this century’s most important social and environmental revolutions. This seemingly humble practice—a technology that goes back thousands of years—has the potential to help mitigate a number of entrenched global problems: desperate hunger, lack of soil […]
Congo biochar initiative will reduce poverty, protect forests, slow climate change

Congo biochar initiative wins critical funding to support poverty alleviation, climate change mitigation An initiative using soil carbon enrichment techniques to boost agricultural yields, alleviate poverty, and protect endangered forests in Central Africa was today selected as one of six projects to win funding under the Congo Basin Forest Fund (CBFF). The scientific committee of […]
Biochar and its Role in Mitigating Climate Change

The growing concerns about climate change have brought biochar, a charcoal produced from biomass combustion, into limelight.
Old growth forests are giant carbon sinks, helping offset emissions

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Could felling and burying trees help fight global warming?

Could felling trees and burying them help fight global warming? Could felling and burying trees help fight global warming? mongabay.com April 30, 2008 Could cutting down trees and burying them help fight global warming? An article in this week’s issue of New Scientist suggests so. Ning Zeng, an atmospheric scientist at the University of Maryland […]
Biochar fund to fight hunger, energy poverty, deforestation, and global warming

Biochar fund to fight hunger, energy poverty, deforestation, and global warming The biochar revolution begins Biochar fund to fight hunger, energy poverty, deforestation, and global warming mongabay.com March 10, 2008 Biopact, a leading bioenergy web site, has announced the creation of a “Biochar Fund” to help poor farmers improve their quality of life without hurting […]

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