Want to fight climate change? Don't poach gorillas (or elephants, hornbills, toucans, etc.)

📆 30/08/2023 6:07 AM
📰 physorg_com

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Here's a climate solution we can all get behind: don't kill elephants. Or poach gorillas—or wipe out tapirs, hornbills, or other large-bodied wildlife that eat fruit and disperse large seeds. That's because a new paper by the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) has found that overhunting these species makes forests less able to store or sequester carbon. The authors describe their results in the journal PLOS Biology.

Wildlife that disperse large seeds like this toucan are key to preserving carbon rich tropical forests. Credit: John Robinson/WCS

Said the study's lead author, Dr. Elizabeth Bennett, WCS Vice President of Species Conservation,"Many tropical forests have been described as 'empty' owing to loss of animals, often as a result of unsustainable subsistence or market hunting. Such hunting is known to have detrimental effects on, broader biodiversity, and the livelihoods and well-being of local communities.

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