Research: Nearly 60 million hectares of forest have regrowed naturally worldwide since 2000! By: Frank Landman If you let grass grow, trees will grow naturally Research: nearly 60 million hectares of forest have been naturally regrown worldwide since 2000! Over the past two decades, forested areas the size of France have naturally regrown. According to research from December 2021 by Professor Poorter of Wageningen University, there are only a few old forests left. Poorter: "It is therefore essential to actively protect primary forests and to prevent further deforestation. But we also notice that tropical forests have the potential to regrow naturally in already deforested areas on deserted lands." These tropical forests recover surprisingly quickly. As a result, there is a great potential for natural tropical forest restoration in the short term. These so-called secular forests 'regrow' naturally in places where after almost complete removal of forest cover for anthropogenic use (usually for shifting cultivation, conventional cultivation or animal husbandry) the forest was gone. Currently, more than half of the world's tropical forests are not primeval forests, but naturally regenerating forests, much of which is secondary forest. In tropical Latin America, secondary forests cover as much as 28% of the land area. Other research titled "Force of Nature: Mapping Forest Regeneration Hotspots", jointly published by the World Wildlife Fund, the Wildlife Conservation Society and BirdLife International, shows that 59 million hectares of forests have been regenerated naturally around the world since 2000. The research states two things. Firstly, natural restoration of forests is better for biodiversity. Secondly, the benefits of regeneration should make us value biodiversity more instead of taking this process for granted. The research discusses, among other things, the example of the Atlantic Forest in Brazil, where 4.2 million hectares of forest cover, an area almost the size of the Netherlands, has been regrown. Reduced use of land for agriculture and grazing, in addition to the occasional migration of people away from the area, contributed significantly to the regrowth. The boreal forests of northern Mongolia, where forest cover has naturally grown by 1.2 million hectares since 2000, were another regeneration 'hotspot' from the study. It also appears that regenerating forests in a natural way is better for the ecosystem. Natural forest regeneration is often cheaper, richer in carbon and better for biodiversity than actively planted forests. See more: https://storymaps.arcgis.com/stories/87fa5cbe59f2460e9702a590314cdc0e