Protecting rainforests through agriculture and forestry

摘要

Conservationists are always looking for ways to halt the pace of deforestation in tropical rainforests. One approach involves recultivating abandoned agricultural land. An international team investigating this concept has just published its findings in Nature Communications.Working in the mountainous regions of Ecuador, the researchers found afforestation and intense use of pastures to be particularly effective, clearly increasing the environmental and economic value of abandoned farmlands.Every year, 130,000 square kilometres of rainforest disappear from the face of the earth - an area equivalent to the size of Greece. The majority of this land is cleared for agricultural development - even in tropical mountain areas. These fields, however, are quickly overgrown with weeds. Bracken is particularly tenacious. It cannot bepermanently eliminated using herbicides or by burning the land. As a result, farmers often abandon the land after a few short years and start clearing new areas of forest.