For example, many experts are looking at some combination of bio-energy with carbon capture, commonly known as BECCS as one way to reduce atmospheric carbon levels. However, a recent study conducted at the University of Exeter found that regenerating forests might be a better option. Many experts question whether any new technology is as effective, or as well-integrated into the Earth’s ecosystem as a forest. Forests absorb carbon dioxide from the air, which they turn into leaves, bark, roots and branches, effectively locking the carbon in for the life of each tree. In the Amazon region alone, some 70 billion tons of CO2 are sequestered each year. But mankind has been destroying forests for centuries to make room for agriculture and for cities and towns and, in the process, removing this natural mechanism for maintaining the carbon balance between the Earth, its atmosphere and its oceans.
The UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) estimates that humanity has now cleared one-half of all tropical forests. Forests now cover roughly 30 percent of all land area, but they are disappearing at a rate of 18.7 million acres per year (equal to 27 soccer fields per minute). That’s the equivalent to the land area of West Virginia plus Connecticut, every year.
One way to push back against this is to restore forests. That is exactly what a project coordinated by Conservation International (CI) intends to do in the Amazon region of Brazil. Over a six-year period, they will plant some 73 million trees over an area of 70,000 acres that had previously been cleared for pasture land. This is the largest project of its kind in the world.
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