Forests regrown on lands that had been cleared for agriculture in Latin America could play a key role in trapping carbon from the atmosphere and mitigating climate change if they are managed properly, researchers said in a study published on Friday.
Over the next 40 years, such second-growth forests have the potential to sequester greenhouse gas emissions equivalent to all fossil fuel and industrial emissions from Latin America in the past two decades, said the study by scientists at the University of Connecticut.
While preventing deforestation is the best protection against releasing climate-changing gases, the study published in the journal Science Advances shows that regrown forests have a bigger impact in combating global warming than previously thought.