Tree planting can harm nature, impact environment negatively– Scientists

A report by 50 leading scientists has said that measures to combat climate change such as tree planting and switching to bioenergy can harm nature and undermine efforts to reduce global warming.

Researchers from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services said some strategies that focus on reducing greenhouse gas emissions could cause harm to wildlife and natural habitats.

“Biodiversity loss and climate change are both driven by human economic activities and mutually reinforce each other. Neither will be successfully resolved unless both are tackled together,” the researchers said.

The scientists warned that the drive by corporate organisations and governments on planting trees to help absorb carbon is not a magic cure.

The report disclosed that the right trees must be planted in the right places in order not to destroy local ecosystems.

It noted that climate change could ‘drastically reduce the mitigation potential of forests due to an increase in extreme events like fires, insects and pathogens’.

Hans-Otto Pörtner, co-chair of the workshop that produced the report, said relying on natural solutions to warming was ‘a vision that may not come true if we let climate change go on even large ecosystems like the Amazon rainforest are progressively losing their ability to support mitigation’.

The priority, he noted, must be working to reduce global emissions.