Resurrecting Rain Forests

By Queuebot in Science & Tech on Mar 14, 2009 at 12:32 pm

The accepted belief is that once destroyed, tropical rain forests could never be restored. But is that really the case or just a myth?

In 1993, researchers from the Boyce Thompson Institute for Plant Sciences at Cornell University began replanting a parcel of worn-out Costa Rican pasture land with seeds collected from native trees found in the community, often racing to gather the seeds before the monkeys got to them.

The result? Many people thought that they had done the impossible:

Ten years after the tree plantings, Cornell graduate student Jackeline Salazar counted the species of plants that took up residence in the shade of the new planted areas. She found remarkably high numbers of species — more than 100 in each plot. And many of the new arrivals were also to be found in nearby remnants of the original forests. [...]

Fully rescuing a rain forest may take hundreds of years, but Leopold, whose findings are published with Salazar in the March 2008 issue of Ecological Restoration, said the study’s results are promising. “I’m surprised,” he said. “We’re getting impressive growth rates in the new forest trees.”

Link – via holeinthedonut

From the Upcoming ueue, submitted by baweibel.

Tags: Boyce Thompson Institute for Plant Sciences, Cornell University, environment, restoration, tropical rain forest

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Oomi
Mar 14th, 2009 at 1:33 pm
Sure, you can replace some of the trees.. but what about the other flora and fauna that was initially lost?

Atleast someone is trying to do something. :/
Johnny Cat
Mar 14th, 2009 at 3:53 pm
Nice post! We could all use some good news.
violet
Mar 14th, 2009 at 3:56 pm
While destruction of rainforests is terrible, I don’t quite understand “surprise” at an example of nature bouncing back when given the room. Have you met Nature? Pushing and adapting and getting in through cracks and being resilient and generally nature-y is sort of its stock in trade.

I mean, we’re doing our best to trample it, but does anybody doubt that within a couple hundred years of humanity’s extinction, nature will be all, “Who?”
LisaL
Mar 14th, 2009 at 4:15 pm
True true violet.
Good article though.
Sue Dunham
Mar 15th, 2009 at 7:48 am
Right on Violet.
I’ve always thought it’s human hubris to imagine mankind’s impact on nature as irreversible. This goes for climate change too.
saehn
Mar 15th, 2009 at 9:28 am
This isn’t all that surprising, like Violet said… but I think the real concern here is that there are unique and UNRECOVERABLE species that can become extinct with the loss of rain forest areas as well. Think about it… say a plant that serves as a basis for a cancer treatment drug grows in one valley where the environmental/soil conditions are very specific. When that valley’s gone, so is that plant.
just_arty
Mar 15th, 2009 at 9:45 am
Agreed Violet, but there are some who has a hard time believing that nature can bounce back unless a study is published, which is somewhat silly. Plus, it’s nice to know we can do something to help nature bounce back even faster.

Saehn– I agree with you, especially concerning rare species, but still, at least trying to restore the rain forest is better than doing nothing.
mmm
Mar 15th, 2009 at 12:17 pm
When I was a student (in the ’50s, ’60s, ’70s), there was no such term as “rain forest” — at least not among ordinary speakers of English. Instead EVERYONE (or almost everyone) in the English-speaking world used the perfectly good, perfectly normal, descriptive and much shorter term, “jungle,” as I will continue to do until the day I die — and as I will continue to try to persuade all of you and others to do.

Several years ago, I started noticing this “rain forest” garbage. The only thing I can guess is that it is a “politically correct” term, invented to replace “jungle.” Maybe the latter word always made some ultra-leftist whiners think of the phrase, “the jungles of darkest Africa,” conjuring up (in their sick minds) an idea of wild, pagan, dark-skinned cannibals. But we can’t have that, you see …!
Johnny Cat
Mar 15th, 2009 at 12:51 pm
GREAT points, mmm!
violet
Mar 15th, 2009 at 2:39 pm
@mmm: I don’t think I understand why it matters. To each his own on this one, but I don’t get the outrage. Maybe the term rain forest is just a little more descriptive.
saehn
Mar 15th, 2009 at 2:54 pm
@mmm: Two minutes on Wikipedia would have gotten you this…

Not all regions called “jungles” would qualify as “rain forests” because many would apply “jungle” to the forests of northern Thailand or southern Guangdong in China: but scientifically, these are “monsoon forests” or “tropical deciduous forests” but not “rain forests”.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jungle
DOJ
Mar 15th, 2009 at 2:58 pm
Everyone should note that nature only bounced back in this case because some humans helped it. This is not proof that logging without re-planting is sustainable.

@mmm – do you call it a “temperate jungle” or a “temperate rain forest”? (also, what other old un-PC terms have you kept/abandoned)
I don’t know if a racial connotation is the reason, but “rain forest” sure sounds like re-branding
annmarie
Mar 16th, 2009 at 3:39 am
TED also had a talk by Willie Smits on how he re-grew a rainforest in Borneo: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3vfuCPFb8wk

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