The recovery of wild animal populations would be particularly favourable to the emergency climate

2023/03/29 Etxebeste Aduriz, Egoitz - Elhuyar Zientzia Iturria: Elhuyar aldizkaria

• Ingurumena
• Klima
• Ekologia

Recovery and protection of populations of some key control species can significantly improve carbon capture and natural accumulation, which would greatly contribute to the climate emergency. This is the conclusion of a recent study published in the journal Nature Climate Change.

In fact, wild animals have a direct impact on the carbon cycle of their ecosystem. So researchers have calculated the influence of nine animals or groups of animals: sea fish, whales, sharks, wolves, wildebeest, marine otters, mussel oxen, African elephants and American bison. And you've seen that by protecting and recovering the populations of these animals, you could catch 6.4 billion tons of CO2 _more per year.

They stress that, in addition to the examples chosen, there are a lot of suitable candidates such as buffaloes, rhinos, pumas, primates, dingos, fruit bats, seals, turtles, etc. Furthermore, due to the impact of human activities on these animals, they see the possibility of easily recovering them if the right conditions are established. This would make it possible to influence the carbon cycle and capture it much more.