A recent study shows how pastures should be reforested:
Pastures are areas of land with natural or managed grasses, herbs, and other forages that are grazed by cattle and other ruminant animals to produce goods like meat and dairy. Many pastures were originally forests. If agricultural activity in these areas were halted, the ecosystems could naturally regenerate, eventually returning to their original forested state. Keeping these pastures instead of allowing forest regrowth leads to a “carbon opportunity cost.” This cost represents the amount of carbon that could be sequestered in the land (or removed from the atmosphere) if agricultural production stopped and natural ecosystems were restored.
Haynek, M. et al. (2024) developed an indicator called the carbon opportunity intensity (COI) to measure this trade-off. COI quantifies the potential carbon sequestration in vegetation and biomass if pastureland were allowed to regrow, in contrast to the productivity (such as cattle pasture or beef production) that would be foregone.
The study suggests that reducing meat production by approximately 13% could potentially sequester up to 125 billion tons of CO₂—equivalent to three years of global fossil fuel emissions. This reduction could primarily occur in high- and upper-middle-income countries.
To offset the decrease in global beef production, areas with lower-carbon intensity pastures and less efficient beef production could aim to intensify their operations to about 47% of the OECD’s production levels. This shift could fully counterbalance the global beef supply loss, helping mitigate emissions without sacrificing total beef production worldwide.
Increasing the global forest area and wood supply can provide multiple benefits by replacing fossil-intensive materials with long-lasting sustainable forestry products. As the demand for sustainable materials grows, forests play a crucial role in carbon sequestration, helping to mitigate climate change while simultaneously supplying renewable resources.
Please visit https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2405758121
