20% of land deforested in the Brazilian Amazon is regrowing forest
mongabay.comSeptember 06, 2009
While the findings are a hopeful sign that the Amazon can recover from deforestation, it will take decades for regrowing forest to store as much carbon and house as much biodiversity as the original forest prior to clearing.
Trees sprout across farmland worldwide
(08/26/2009) Half the planet's farmed landscapes have significant tree cover, reports a new satellite-based study. The research, conducted by the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research's World Agroforestry Centre found that tree cover exceeds 10 percent on more than 1 billion hectares of farmland, indicating that agroforestry is a "vital part" of worldwide agricultural production. 320 million hectares of forested agricultural land are found in Latin America, 190 million hectares in sub-Saharan Africa and 130 million hectares in Southeast Asia.
Ecological restoration substantially boosts biodiversity and ecosystem services
(07/30/2009) A new analysis reports that ecological restoration generally deliver benefits for both conserving biodiversity and supporting human livelihoods, but does not completely reverse degradation caused by humans.
Brazil to pay farmers $50/month to plant trees in the Amazon
(06/22/2009) Brazil will pay small farmers to plant trees in deforested parts of the Amazon under a plan unveiled Friday by President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva.
Breakthrough may enable reforestation using mahogany
(10/16/2008) Brazilian researchers are closer to developing a way to establish large-scale mahogany plantations, reports the ITTO in its bi-monthly update. Scientists at the Federal Rural University of Amazonia (UFRA) have found that planting a matrix of mahogany with cedar reduces the incidence of the Hypsipyla grandella caterpillar, a chief pest of mahogany that has doomed previous attempts to reforest with the valuable hardwood species.
Regrowing the Amazon rainforest will require help from bats and birds
(09/15/2008) As large tracts of Amazon rainforest are degraded by industrial logging and cleared for cattle pasture and agriculture, other deforested areas are abandoned and being reclaimed by forest. Understanding this recolonization of degraded forest lands by pioneer species will critical to efforts to rehabilitate restore forests around the world.
Reforestation a growing, but complicated, initiative
(06/12/2008) As the rate of deforestation continues apace — 13 million hectares per year in a global basis — several countries have begun to look at reforesting degraded areas to aid suffering biodiversity, indigenous groups, and small local economies. However most of the interest and activity surrounding reforestation is as a tool to mitigate climate change. A new program just launched by the Nature Conservancy and several local partners plans to plant a billion trees in the fragmented Atlantic Forest of Brazil. The United Nations Environmental Program has already planted over two billion trees worldwide and plans to plant five billion more. China has planted billions more. However effective reforestation is not proving as easy as simply planting trees and waiting for them to grow, in fact, sometimes it may be best to leave the whole process to nature.
A billion trees to be planted in Brazil's Atlantic Forest over the next 7 years
(04/22/2008) A billion trees to be planted in the Atlantic Forest over the next seven years. The Nature Conservancy has begun a program to plant a billion trees in Brazil's dwindled Atlantic Forest. The Atlantic Forest used to cover Brazil's long coast, but today only seven percent of the forest remains. Both the megacities of Sao Paulo (the world's fifth largest city) and Rio de Janeiro have emerged and grown in what used to be tropical forest. Yet, the forest remaining retains an incredible bio-diversity much of it endemic.
