Why are exotic trees are harmful to the environment
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Plant a tree, save the Earth, or so the thinking goes. But what if it's not the right kind of tree?
The results could be undesirable — in fact, they might be the polar opposite of what's good for the environment, according to a new study published in Science.
After examining Europe's forest management since 1750, a team of researchers concluded that despite the region's best efforts — forests take up 10% more land today than they did prior to the Industrial Revolution — its tactics did exactly zilch to stem the effects of climate change.
"The current assumption is that all forest management and all forests contribute to climate mitigation," Kim Naudts, a postdoctoral ecologist at the Max Planck Institute for Meteorology and the study's lead author, told the scientific journal Nature. "We cannot say that is true, at least for Europe."
According to the study, which used a computer model to reconstruct 260 years of European forest management, the localized surface temperature rose 0.12 degrees Celsius, despite the addition of forests. Moreover, the net carbon quantity did not decrease even though it feasibly should have, given that trees are good at sucking up and storing carbon dioxide.