Africa’s forests are “no longer absorbing carbon,” researchers have found, warning that without the “climate buffer” Africa used to provide, developed countries will need to cut more carbon to stay within the Paris Agreement’s limit of 2°C global warming.
A study by the National Centre for Earth Observation used satellite data with machine learning and field observations to create a detailed map of biomass changes across the African continent over ten years, tracking the amount of carbon stored in trees and woodlands to form a picture of deforestation patterns.
Between 2010 and 2017, African forests, particularly in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Madagascar, and areas in West Africa, lost 106 billion kilograms of biomass every year. The loss means the forests have gone from being a carbon sink prior to 2010, absorbing more carbon dioxide from the atmosphere than they generated, and have turned instead into a carbon source.
To blame? Human activity, say the researchers. Land clearances by farmers, infrastructure development, and mining are all behind the deforestation, which, the researchers say, governments should intervene to prevent, through schemes such as Brazil’s Tropical Forest Forever Facility (TFFF), which pays countries to preserve their forests. Funds of over $100 billion (over €86 billion) are required, but less than 6.5% of that has been raised.
Prof Heiko Balzter, a senior author and director of the Institute for Environmental Futures at the University of Leicester, said the findings are “a critical wake-up call” that should drive policymakers to put “better safeguards in place to protect the world’s tropical forests” and make more progress on their COP 26 promise to end global deforestation by 2030. More countries need to pay into the TFFF initiative for it to work as intended, Balzter said, paying forested nations “to keep their trees rooted in the ground.”
Dr. Nezha Acil, co-author from the National Center for Earth Observation at the University of Leicester’s Institute for Environmental Futures said funding is just the start of the work by governments, the private sector and NGOs to restore the world’s carbon balance, arguing that, “Stronger forest governance, enforcement against illegal logging, and large-scale restoration programs such as AFR100, which aims to restore 100 million hectares of African landscapes by 2030, can make a huge difference in reversing the damage done.”
The deforestation tracked by the study means all three of Earth’s major rainforest zones – the South American Amazon, Southeast Asia, and Africa – are now generating more carbon than they absorb.
