ASIATODAY.ID, JAKARTA – Tropical rainforests in Asia play a major role in global climate resilience.
A study from the University of Sydney reveals that tropical forests in Asia are more resilient to climate change than previously thought. Therefore, according to researchers, protecting tropical forests and highland forests in Asia must be a priority.
Rebecca Hamilton, researcher and lead author of the study, said that the world is too focused on the Amazon and boreal forests as carbon sinks. In fact, forests in Southeast Asia could also be good candidates.
According to Hamilton, forest areas in Southeast Asia dating to the Last Glacial Maximum (more than 19 thousand years ago) are characterized by a highly diverse vegetation mosaic, and include tropical rainforests adjacent to grasslands or savannas.
“Our research shows that prioritizing the protection of forests above 1000 meters or montane forests, along with seasonally dry forest types could be important for preventing future savannas in Asian rainforests,” Hamilton said as reported by the Malay Mail, Friday, December 29 2023.
To reach this conclusion, his team reviewed analyzes of 59 paleo-environmental sites in tropical Southeast Asia. The aim is to determine the extent of forest transformation during the Last Glacial Maximum.
Pollen grains preserved in the lake indicate that forests continued to exist during this period, alongside savanna grasslands. According to the researchers, this type of discovery could provide evidence that mountain forests located at altitudes of more than 1,000 meters, persist and even expand in highland areas. Meanwhile, the lowlands are experiencing an evolution towards seasonally dry forests, with naturally grassy lower vegetation.
“This ‘hybrid’ open forest biome provides an alternative to the binary ecology currently accepted in the region, while providing new insights into the ecological resilience of tropical forests in Southeast Asia and beyond,” Dr Hamilton’s team concluded.
In the face of climate change, the world’s tropical forests are increasingly in the spotlight, and scientists are closely watching their evolution. In July 2021, NASA scientists created an index to assess the impact of global warming and human exploitation on the world’s largest tropical forests.
Published in the journal One Earth, the results of their research show that the world’s main tropical rainforest zones such as Amazonia, Congo Basin, Kalimantan and others have different levels of sensitivity to deforestation and climate change. Since the 1990s, 15 to 20 percent of tropical forests have been cut down, and another 10 percent have been damaged by fires. (AT Network)
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