According to a long-term study by researchers from Berlin and Dresden, deforested rainforests take much longer to regenerate than assumed.
“Up until now, it was assumed in the forestry sector that it takes about 30 years for a forest to be renewed and that one can only think about using it economically again.
Now we see that it will probably take 40 to 60 years before the original ecosystem is restored in its depth and breadth, ”said Raffael Ernst from the Senckenberg Natural History Collections on Wednesday in Dresden.
Berlin / Dresden - The study clearly signals that the cycles between deforestation must be significantly extended in order to protect the ecosystem.
Together with colleagues from the Museum für Naturkunde Berlin, the Dresden Senckenberg researchers had studied the biodiversity of the rainforest in the West African country of Ivory Coast (Côte d'Ivoire) for more than twenty years.
The ecosystem there had still not recovered almost 50 years after the deforestation.
The forest in Taï National Park was able to regenerate naturally.
Ernst: "We wanted to know whether the biodiversity and composition have been restored."
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The researchers focused on populations of 33 species of frogs.
"Amphibians are particularly suitable as indicators of environmental changes: They have complex life-histories - and rapid reproduction cycles, and therefore often have specialized requirements for their habitat," explained Mark-Oliver Rödel from the Museum in Berlin.
Although the forest has generally recovered, the composition of the species would still have deviated significantly from its original state more than forty years after the deforestation.
Some frog species would never return to their original habitat.
The study was published in the journal "Forest Ecology and Management".
dpa