FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS

Photo detail / credit: Guanaco, Rewilding Argentina – Franco Bucci

Here are some common questions and clarifications about Animating the Carbon Cycle

1. What is Animating the Carbon Cycle? Answer
2. Is using technology for carbon capture helpful? Answer
3. What is Legacy Carbon? Answer
4. How does the ACC model ensure the success of conservation efforts while also prioritising the well-being of local communities?  Answer
5. How do wild species impact the carbon cycle in terrestrial, freshwater, and marine ecosystems? Answer
6. Some suggest that concepts like ACC look good on paper, but developing nations do not have the resources to rewild. What is your response? Answer
7. What is the difference between carbon sinks and carbon sources? Answer
8. What is trophic rewilding? Answer
9. How is the climate linked to biodiversity, and what role does the ACC model play? Answer
10. Is rewilding therefore a good option for offsetting carbon emissions? Answer
11. What are NDCs and why is 2025 an important year? Answer
12. What’s the difference between the terms ‘carbon’ and ‘carbon dioxide’ in the context of the climate crisis? Answer
13. Why is Animating the Carbon Cycle (ACC) not considered an offset for emissions? Answer
14. What are biodiversity hotspots? Answer
15. I thought we needed more trees and plants to absorb CO2. Why focus on animals versus plants? Answer
16. The ACC research paper in Nature Climate Change quickly became one of the top 5 most impactful papers on Altmetric. What is Altmetric? Answer

1. What is Animating the Carbon Cycle?

Answer:

Animating the Carbon Cycle (ACC) is the new scientific field that studies the role of animals in enabling carbon drawdown. The new Yale/GRA ACC model, developed at Yale School of Environment with support from the Global Rewilding Alliance, can characterise and quantify the effects that animals (both carnivores and herbivores) can have on ecosystem carbon budgets.

The model serves as a tool to ascertain the feasibility of using specific on-the-ground trophic rewilding projects to enhance carbon capture and storage. The modelling provides a crucial foundation to assist decision-making aimed at rewilding nature for the purpose of mitigating climate change and biodiversity loss.

Key reference: Rizzuto, M., Leroux S.L, & Schmitz, O.J. Rewiring the carbon cycle: a theoretical framework for animal-driven ecosystem carbon sequestration. Journal of Geophysical Research: Biogeosciences 129, e2024JG008026, https://doi.org/10.1029/2024JG008026

2. Is using technology for carbon capture helpful?

Answer:

Our climate crisis problem will require multiple solutions.

Technological solutions to reach net-zero emissions could help – but there remain many uncertainties over their costs and effectiveness. Just as significantly, it is becoming increasingly apparent that technological solutions alone are insufficient to prevent a 1.5–2°C rise. We need to both stop current emissions, as well as increase the capture and storage of atmospheric CO2 to draw down the huge amount of legacy carbon that is already in our atmosphere. That is why we need widespread rewilding and nature restoration – because our research shows just what a large amount of legacy carbon it could enable restored ecosystems to draw down.

We recognise the need for both nature-based and technology-based solutions. The advantage of nature-based solutions is that they involve a proven “technology” that is cost-efficient and effective. Rewilding is a solution to our two-fold crises of climate change and biodiversity loss. As well as stabilising our climate through carbon sequestration, the return of nature helps to curb extinction rates of key, iconic species and restore our planet’s biodiversity. We do not know of any technological solution that achieves these twin benefits simultaneously.

3. What is Legacy Carbon?

Answer:

Legacy carbon refers to the excess carbon dioxide (CO2) that has been released into the atmosphere over the past centuries, primarily from human activities like burning fossil fuels, deforestation, and extractive industrial processes. This carbon has accumulated and remains in the atmosphere, contributing to global warming and the climate emergency.

While reducing new emissions is critical, addressing legacy carbon is essential for reversing climate change. Rewilding efforts, such as restoring ecosystems and bringing back wildlife populations, offer a natural solution by drawing down these vast amounts of carbon already in the atmosphere. This makes rewilding a significant tool for tackling legacy carbon and enhancing climate resilience.

4. How does the ACC model ensure the success of conservation efforts while also prioritizing the well-being of local communities?

Answer:

Human-nature coexistence is key for fostering healthy ecosystems while ensuring the well-being of local communities. The ACC model emphasizes collaboration and integration, recognizing that successful conservation depends on the active participation of people living alongside nature. Here’s why it is important:

• The Need for Protected Spaces: Only a fraction of the large landscapes necessary for maintaining biodiversity is protected. Collaborative efforts with local communities are essential to effectively expand these protected areas.
• Community-Centric Approaches: Involving local populations in planning and decision-making ensures that conservation efforts respect traditional knowledge and practices, enhancing the likelihood of success.
• Resolving Conflicts: Addressing community concerns about rewilding efforts can mitigate conflicts and promote political support for conservation initiatives.
• Creating Coexistence Landscapes: We aim to develop dynamic coexistence landscapes that allow both people and wildlife to thrive together, adapting to each other’s needs over time.
• Integrating Knowledge for Long-Term Success: Successful coexistence requires drawing on local knowledge and ecological science, fostering cultural and institutional changes to support both biodiversity and community livelihoods.

Source: Nature Climate Change Vol 13 April 2023

5. How do wild species impact the carbon cycle in terrestrial, freshwater, and marine ecosystems?

Answer:

Animals impact the carbon cycle in various ways, such as foraging, redistributing seeds and nutrients, and trampling and compacting soil sediments, all of which enhance and stabilize carbon storage. Grazing and trampling by animals can reduce the chances of massive, CO2-releasing wildfires (by eating dry matter on the forest floor, for example) and protect against permafrost thawing, which would otherwise release methane. Compacted soils enhance carbon retention through changes in chemical reactions and microbial processes. These beneficial impacts vary by ecosystem and will change over time according to the abundance of wild animal populations as they recover over time.

Some of these effects may seem counterintuitive initially, such as for example the fact that the absence of large grazing animals in much of the Arctic has allowed an increase in tree cover which, whilst absorbing some carbon, can lead to the ground heating up and releasing methane, a potent greenhouse gas. Rewilding abundant numbers of large grazing animals in the far north could keep trees in check and help to maintain the permafrost.

6. Some suggest that concepts like ACC look good on paper, but developing nations do not have the resources to rewild. What is your response?

Answer:

While developing nations may lack financial resources, they possess critical landscapes and wildlife species essential for rewilding efforts under the ACC model. Industrialized nations, with fewer such landscapes, need to form equitable, just, and effective partnerships with developing nations. These partnerships should recognize the value of traditional knowledge, customs, and the stewardship of local communities who live on the land and are integral to successful conservation efforts. ACC provides the sound scientific basis on which to build a flow of funds to countries that can play a critical role in stabilising the global climate through rewilding.

7. What is the difference between carbon sinks and carbon sources?

Answer:

A carbon sink is a natural or artificial reservoir that absorbs more carbon than it releases, thus lowering the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere. Examples include most forests, oceans, and soils in grasslands. In contrast, a carbon source emits more carbon than it absorbs, contributing to the increase of CO2 in the atmosphere. Examples include burning fossil fuels, deforestation, and agricultural activities.

Wildlife’s role: The absence of animals can turn carbon sinks into sources. For example, herbivores stimulate plant growth, which helps ecosystems absorb carbon. Without these animals, ecosystems degrade, releasing stored carbon, making them emitters rather than absorbers of CO2.

8. What is trophic rewilding?

Answer:

Trophic rewilding is a conservation strategy that involves the reintroduction or protection of key species, often large predators or herbivores, into ecosystems where they have been extirpated (completely eradicated) or their populations have significantly declined. These species, known as “keystone species,” play a crucial role in maintaining the structure, diversity, and functioning of ecosystems. By restoring natural processes like predation, herbivory, and scavenging, trophic rewilding helps to rebalance ecosystems, increase biodiversity, and enhance the resilience of habitats to environmental changes.

Answer:

The climate and biodiversity are deeply interconnected, with each influencing the health and stability of the other. Biodiversity plays a crucial role in regulating the Earth’s climate by storing and cycling carbon through healthy ecosystems, and supporting resilience against climate extremes. The ACC (Animating the Carbon Cycle) model emphasizes this relationship by demonstrating how protecting and rewilding wildlife can enhance carbon storage and reduce greenhouse gas emissions. By restoring natural processes and allowing ecosystems to function optimally, the ACC model not only addresses biodiversity loss but also contributes significantly to mitigating the climate crisis. In this way, rewilding can be seen as the ‘bridge’ between biodiversity and climate, with wild animal species as the ‘climate heroes’ who, when they return to ecosystems from which they have long been absent, can enable the drawdown of vast amounts of legacy carbon caused by humans since the industrial revolution through habitat destruction, resource extraction and the use of fossil fuels.

10. Is rewilding therefore a good option for offsetting carbon emissions?

Answer:

There is huge urgency to draw down carbon from historical emissions in order to stabilise the global climate and therefore avoid the worst effects of climate change. As well as decreasing our existing emissions to net zero, we need to remove 440-500 billion tons (Gt) of excess CO2 from the atmosphere by the end of the century to stay below a dangerous 1.5°C increase in global temperatures. We call this ‘legacy carbon’ that we must work to capture and store from our atmosphere.

The Global Rewilding Alliance’s position is that rewilding and nature restoration as a significant new option for carbon drawdown should not be used to facilitate “business as usual” through offsetting current emissions, but instead should play a positive role in drawing down historical emissions. This provides a very real option for rich countries – those that have produced the majority of historical emissions – to play their part in addressing the climate emergency at the same time as protecting and restoring nature through rewilding and the return of nature. This can often be done in partnership with less rich countries, which are often those with the richest remaining wildlife and/or the option to restore large carbon-absorbing ecosystems. Such projects can in turn provide dignified and sustainable livelihoods for the local communities in those areas.

11. What are NDCs and why is 2025 an important year?

Answer:

NDCs, or Nationally Determined Contributions, are climate action plans that countries develop under the Paris Agreement and submit to the UNFCCC (United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change) every five years. These plans outline each country’s commitments to reduce national greenhouse gas emissions and adapt to the impacts of the climate crisis. As a key element of the Paris Agreement, NDCs aim to limit global temperature rise to between 1.5°C and 2°C above pre-industrial levels, helping to mitigate the most dangerous impacts of the climate crisis.

NDCs are country-specific, meaning that each nation sets its own targets based on its unique circumstances, capacities, and development priorities.

In 2025, countries are required to submit their updated NDCs, which presents a critical opportunity to include wildlife conservation as a key strategy in addressing the climate crisis. Healthy wildlife populations contribute to more resilient ecosystems, which play a significant role in carbon storage and climate adaptation, making them an essential component of future climate action plans.

The International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW) has developed guidelines to address the critical need to align national climate strategies with biodiversity goals. They provide countries with 10 practical recommendations for integrating wild animals and wildlife conservation into their NDCs. Find out more here.

Answer:

Carbon (C) is an abundant element essential to all living organisms on Earth. Its source is carbon dioxide (CO2), which plants capture from the atmosphere during photosynthesis. They convert CO₂ and water into carbohydrates for growth and energy. When animals and humans consume plants, they take in this stored carbon, transforming it into various forms.

The carbon cycle describes how carbon moves through nature. When living organisms die or breathe, carbon returns to the atmosphere as CO₂. Over millions of years, some carbon from dead organisms becomes fossil fuels like coil and oil. Burning these fuels releases CO2, contributing to the climate crisis.

While CO2 is crucial for life, excess CO2 from human activities is the primary greenhouse gas driving the climate crisis. To cap global warming at 1.5–2°C, legacy carbon dioxide from the Industrial Revolution must be absorbed and stored – this is the aim of ACC.

Diagram to go here

Source: Yale School of the Environment

Answer:

ACC is not an offset because it focuses on enhancing natural carbon sinks in ecosystems while emphasizing the need to reduce emissions. It should not be used to justify ongoing fossil fuel use. Instead, ACC aims to increase negative emissions and strengthen ecosystems to capture legacy carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. This approach highlights the potential positive impact on ecosystem health while emphasizing the importance of achieving net-zero emissions as part of a comprehensive climate strategy.

Answer:

Biodiversity hotspots are regions rich in species that face significant threats from human activities. Identifying these areas is crucial for conservation, as focused efforts here can yield substantial ecological benefits. Research is essential to prioritize species and locations where Animating the Carbon Cycle (ACC) can have a meaningful impact.

15. I thought we needed more trees and plants to absorb CO2. Why focus on animals versus plants?

Answer:

While trees and plants are essential for absorbing CO2, wild animals also play a crucial role in ecosystem health. Historical assumptions suggested that animals would have a minimal impact due to their lower biomass compared to plants, but this overlooks the significant feedback effects animals have on their ecosystems.

Mass tree planting, though well-intentioned, often overlooks the complexity of ecosystem dynamics. Simply adding trees does not guarantee a functional ecosystem; healthy ecosystems require a balance of plants, animals, and other organisms. A holistic approach that restores both flora and fauna is essential for creating resilient and effective ecosystems.

Scientific research shows that animals significantly influence nutrient cycling, seed dispersal, and habitat structure. For example, 170 European bison helped capture nearly ten times more CO2 than without them! These feedback effects are vital for regulating the carbon cycle, demonstrating that without animals, ecosystems do not function effectively. Their interactions in food webs enhance resilience and productivity across various environments.

16. What is Altmetric?

Answer:

Altmetric measures the impact of scientific publications by tracking all the online attention to published research – policy documents, mainstream news outlets, social media, blogs, Wikipedia, online reference managers and more.

Our research paper “Trophic rewilding can expand natural climate solutions” published in Nature Climate Change very quickly became one of the top 5% most impactful scientific papers on Altmetric. It has also been mentioned by 100 news outlets!