Natural forests best for the climate

In 2019, an article by T. Crowther et al. in "The global tree restoration potential" concluded that by planting and reforesting nearly one trillion trees, one third of human carbon debt could be captured by 2100. However, the article missed what another article in the same year by S. Lewis et al. emphasized, in "Restoring natural forests is the best way to store carbon", that natural regeneration, and not planting, was most effective in capturing carbon from the atmosphere. The latter paper concluded that the effect of planting was a fraction of the effect of allowing nature to reforest itself naturally, which was also several times more effective than agroforestry. T. Crowther managed to come back and gather hundreds of scientists, who have done a deep dive into the research on the importance of the indispensable contribution of natural forests to carbon sequestration from the atmosphere and tell us about the story and the importance of natural forests in an inspiring film, which is being shown through the World of Science throughout September. Watch and see why protecting old-growth forest is the world's best local action to slow down climate catastrophe globally.