Solving the climate crisis and biodiversity crisis are not separate issues. Animals remove billions of tons of carbon dioxide each year. Restoring species will help limit global warming, new science reveals.
Protecting wildlife across the world could significantly enhance natural carbon capture and storage by supercharging ecosystem carbon sinks, a new study led by Yale School of the Environment Oastler Professor of Population and Community Ecology Oswald Schmitz has found.
The study, published in Nature Climate Change and co-authored by 15 scientists from eight countries, examined nine wildlife species — marine fish, whales, sharks, grey wolves, wildebeest, sea otters, musk oxen, African forest elephants, and American bison. The data shows that protecting or restoring their populations could collectively facilitate the additional capture of 6.41 billion tons of carbon dioxide annually. This is 95% of the amount needed every year to meet the Paris Agreement target of removing enough carbon from the atmosphere to keep global warming below the 1.5-degree Celsius threshold.
“Wildlife species, throughout their interaction with the environment, […]
It was disheartening to learn that groups in the West are going after wolves again. They were gone for years and look what happened to the environment without them. Trees and foliage was eaten by elk, deer, and moose, and when the wolves were re-introduced, this grew back and was beautiful. Not only that, but the foliage takes in carbon dioxide and emits oxygen and that was when the air got better and better. The agencies listen to the herders and farmers who only care about their herds, but not the environment. There has to be a meaningful resolution to this and it’s not wiping out the wolf population definitely!