Overview
- A peer-reviewed Nature paper from a team led by TU Darmstadt studied protected former farms in Ecuador’s Chocó that sit next to intact rainforest.
- On these sites, species diversity climbed to more than 90 percent of undisturbed levels within three decades, and about three quarters of typical rainforest species returned.
- The authors identify animals as key drivers of recovery because bats, monkeys, birds, and dung beetles spread and bury seeds and help pollinate trees.
- Recovery speeds differ by group, with bats often returning within about six years on former cacao plots while nocturnal insects may need more than a century to reach similar levels.
- The researchers and conservationists warn that current global deforestation of roughly 4 to 6 million hectares a year outpaces restoration and call for stronger protection and policy action.