Protect young secondary forests for optimum carbon removal
Abstract Avoiding severe global warming requires large-scale removals of atmospheric carbon dioxide. Forest regeneration offers cost-effective carbon removals, but annual rates vary substantially by location and forest age. Here we generate grid-level (~1-km 2 ) growth curves for aboveground live carbon in naturally regrowing forests by combining 109,708 field estimates with 66 environmental covariates. Across the globe and the first 100 years of growth, maximum carbon removal rates varied 200-fold, with the greatest rates estimated in ~20- to 40-year-old forests. Despite a focus on new forests for natural climate solutions, protecting existing young secondary forests can provide up to 8-fold more carbon removal per hectare than new regrowth. These maps could help to target the optimal ages and locations where a key carbon removal strategy could be applied, and improve estimates of how secondary forests contribute to global carbon cycling.
Authors
- Kristine Lister
- Adriane Esquivel‐Muelbert (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5335-1259)
- C. Ronnie Drever (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5338-3496)
- Viola Heinrich (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0501-0032)
- Nathaniel Robinson (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8055-5270)
- Sassan Saatchi (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8524-4917)
- Yidi Xu (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1528-4256)
- Thomas A. M. Pugh (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6242-7371)
- Philippe Ciais (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8560-4943)
- Celso H. L. Silva (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1052-5551)
- Susan C. Cook‐Patton (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7194-4397)
- David A. Gibbs (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7389-8569)
- Zhihua Liu
Institutions
- California Institute of Technology (US)
- The Nature Conservancy (US)
- World Resources Institute (US)
- Jet Propulsion Laboratory (US)
- Duke University (US)
- Lund University (SE)
- Université Paris-Saclay (FR)
- University of Bristol (GB)
- Instituto de Pesquisa Ambiental da Amazônia (BR)
- Laboratoire des Sciences du Climat et de l'Environnement (FR)
- Forest Research (GB)
- GFZ Helmholtz Centre for Geosciences (DE)
- Universidade Federal do Maranhão (BR)
- Smithsonian Environmental Research Center (US)
- World Agroforestry Centre (KE)
- Nature Conservancy of Canada (CA)
- University of Birmingham (GB)
Publication Details
- Journal
- Nature Climate Change
- Published
- 2025-06-24
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.1038/s41558-025-02355-5
- Citations
- 19
- Primary Topic
- Forest Management and Policy
- Type
- article
- Field-Weighted Citation Impact
- 21.00
Funders
- European Commission
- Lunds Universitet
- Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico
- Vetenskapsrådet
- Consortium of International Agricultural Research Centers