Rewild to mitigate the climate crisis, urge leading scientists | Environment | The Guardian

Rewild to mitigate the climate crisis, urge leading scientists | Environment | The Guardian

Rewild to save most species and lock carbon

Restoring a third of the areas most degraded by humans and preserving remaining natural ecosystems would prevent 70% of projected extinctions of mammals, birds and amphibians. It would also sequester around 465 gigatonnes of CO₂ — almost half of the total atmospheric CO₂ increase since the Industrial Revolution. Researchers scoured detailed land-use and cover maps of the globe to pinpoint the places where rewilding would have most impact and be most cost-effective. “We were surprised by the magnitude of what we found – the huge difference that restoration can make,” says environmental scientist Bernardo Strassburg. Done properly, rewilding can even go hand in hand with increased agricultural productivity, says Strassburg.

The Guardian | 5 min readReference: Nature paper