Why is rewilding so important?

In December 2022, 185 countries in attendance at COP15 in Montreal signed the historic Kunming-Montreal biodiversity agreement. This agreement outlined key global targets to have reached by 2030, and includes such vital matters as restoring degraded ecosystems, stopping the extinction of known species and tackling climate change through nature-based solutions.

For years, these natured-based solutions have mostly focused on the mass planting of trees. More trees equals more carbon sequestration, right? Actually, it is much more complicated than that. As was recently discussed at COP 15, big tree plantations that prioritise planting trees without thinking about the ecosystem that already exists around them can actually do more harm than good. We need a better system…

At Connecting the Roots, our aim is to restore vital biodiversity in Costa Rica via ‘rewilding’ – a holistic process which considers all areas of ecosystem restoration, from re-establishing natural habitats, to local community involvement. It isn’t just about planting trees, it is about returning ecosystems to how they were prior to human interference.

Today, we’re looking at why the biodiversity of Costa Rica has been so badly damaged, and how significant restoring its biodiversity is to fighting climate change. We’re also considering three of the main advantages of rewilding over reforestation.

The state of affairs in Costa Rica

First of all, let’s look at why Costa Rica has been so badly damaged, and how, since the end of World War II, 80 percent of the country’s forests have disappeared.

The most significant damage happened during the 1950s when a startling 60% of the country’s natural habitats were cleared to make room for farming cattle. This problem worsened in the 1960s when the USA offered Costa Rican cattle farmers millions of dollars in loans to produce beef.

As we now know, cattle farming is one of the most significant causes of climate change. In fact, Nobel-Prize winning scientist, Steven Chu  found that ‘agriculture and land-use generates more greenhouse gas emissions than power generation.’

Cattle farming involves flattening large areas of land for pasture. This decimates species, causes extinctions, and displace native animals, disrupting healthy food chains.

As if that’s not bad enough, the chemicals used for flattening the land and growing the grass that the cattle feed on poisons the land, and, along with the waste produced, pollutes the waterways. Also, the methane from the cattle actually increases the planet’s temperature.

30 by 30

Connecting the Roots’ efforts are concentrated in the Nicoya Peninsula of Costa Rica’s Guanacaste Province. This area is made up of ‘tropical dry forest’ – which, in a scientific study conducted in 2020, was identified as an ecosystem vital to the fight against climate change.

The same study discovered the monumental impact that returning 30% of ecosystems to their natural state could have on the planet. The study found that by protecting 30 percent of those areas (alongside protecting eco-systems that are still in their natural form) we can prevent more than 70 percent of predicted extinctions and soak up more than 465 billion tons of carbon dioxide. This is the equivalent of reducing all the carbon that human behaviour has built up in the atmosphere over the last two centuries by 49 percent!

So significant were these findings that the so-called ’30 by 30’ was adopted by the UN, and has now been implemented as a focus of the goals set at COP15.

Three major advantages of rewilding:

Rewilding has been identified as one of the quickest and most cost-effective methods of biodiversity restoration – and, most importantly, it delivers the most significant results.

1 – Rewilding actually reverses climate change

By rewilding forests, we recreate the world’s natural ‘carbon sinks’, which play a vital role in removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. Through photosynthesis, trees and plants absorb carbon into their leaves, soil and wood, filtering it out of the atmosphere and into the ecosystem of the forest, where it belongs.

2 – Rewilding prevents natural disasters

Deforestation is linked to increased likelihood of natural disasters, particularly drought, flooding and desertification, which happens as a result of increased temperatures and overexploitation of the soil.

In forests, rainwater is absorbed at 67 times the rate that it is absorbed into grass-covered soil. Trees also stop soil washing into waterways, which causes landslides and erosion of riverbanks, ultimately leading to flooding.

By restoring these ecosystems, not just with trees but also with the plants, soil and mycelium that make up the forests, the land once again begins to function as it was meant to, and natural rainfall patterns resume.

3 – Rewilding returns key species and reverses mass extinctions

Deforestation has destroyed the natural habitats of many of Costa Rica’s incredible animal, insect, bird and flora population. When species are misplaced, not only do they come under threat of extinction, but for those that do survive, the entire food chain is thrown off.

Even a slight change in the behaviour of animals at the top of the food chain can alter the ecosystem, the landscape and even the composition of the soil and the atmosphere.

Rewilding ensures native species have a place to live that offers the optimum conditions for them to survive. It brings native species back to their true habitats and restores the balance required for the ecosystem to regenerate and operate in the way that Mother Earth intended it.