Tree planting can be the wrong nature-based solution in grasslands and savannas
Maximizing tree cover and carbon uptake in naturally open savannas and grasslands can reduce native biodiversity, alter fire and water regimes, threaten livelihoods tied to grazing systems, and create carbon stores that may be less durable than advertised.
WHAT THE EVIDENCE SAYS
Lehmann and colleagues argue that nature-based climate projects in open ecosystems are too often evaluated through a forest-centric lens. Maximizing tree cover and carbon uptake in naturally open savannas and grasslands can reduce native biodiversity, alter fire and water regimes, threaten livelihoods tied to grazing systems, and create carbon stores that may be less durable than advertised. Their central point is not “trees are bad”; it is that the desired state of an ecosystem cannot be inferred from carbon density alone.
WHY IT MATTERS / OUR READ
This cuts directly across the common visual shorthand that ecological improvement means making a landscape greener, denser, or more forested. Open systems have their own disturbance regimes, herbaceous diversity, hydrology and human relationships. Climate mitigation imposed without ecological context can become degradation wearing a restoration label.
CAVEATS / UNCERTAINTY
This is a synthesis/comment rather than a new controlled experiment; its strength comes from integrating existing ecological evidence rather than testing one intervention directly.
SOURCE
Nature Geoscience · Original evidence
View original evidence ↗
