Staff writer Craig Welch covered the ongoing
transition to emission-free electric vehicles
in the United States and around the world in
the October 2021 issue.more can be allowed to revert to forests.
Brancalion has focused on Brazil’s Atlantic
Forest, 75 percent of which has been removed
for cities, cattle ranching, paper production, or
growing sugarcane and soybeans. But that land
often isn’t used well. Expanses of sugar cane
land don’t produce a profit—they “cost money,”
Brancalion says. Those areas—on steep slopes,
near remnant forest patches—offer opportu-
nities for restoration. Improving agricultural
efficiency may make more land available.
Combining eucalyptus harvests with native
planting is just one reminder that successful
restoration must provide value for local commu-
nities. Since farmers in Niger learned they grew
more cereal grains by planting around—rather
than clearing—woodlands, 200 million trees
have come back. Not far from where I met Bran-
calion, residents aided by a local environ mental
nonprofit planted strips of trees for firewood
and fruit and grew beans around degraded
forests, helping black lion tamarin monkeys
avoid extinction.
With resources limited and no time to spare,
Brancalion says, jump-starting natural processes
can help. In many cases, if we let nature do the
heavy lifting, he says, “the forest can regrow
quite effectively.” jFIXING FORESTS 131