Elephants Store More Carbon by Destroying Smaller Plants

Image courtesy of Amoghavarsha JS, CC BY-SA 3.0.




Joel Kontinen

Elephants do a lot to keep us from the summer’s heat. An article in New Scientist says:

“Elephants do a lot of damage to plants as they stomp around the jungle, but, counterintuitively, this activity increases the biomass of the forest, letting it store more carbon.

If elephants were to go extinct, the amount of carbon stored in central African rainforests could ultimately fall by 7 per cent, according to a new analysis."


So, plant trees and let elephants roam the savannas and forests.

Source:

Wong, Sam. 2019. Elephants help forests store more carbon by destroying smaller plants New Scientist (15 July).