The webinar presents the latest scientific insights about how animal species restoration and conservation can contribute to nature-based climate solutions via their underappreciated functional roles in protecting and enhancing carbon capture and storage across a broad range of global ecosystems.
Os Schmitz is the Oastler Professor of Population and Community Ecology at the Yale School of the Environment. His work aims to make sense of nature’s complexity arising from the interdependencies and eco-evolutionary interactions among the diversity of carnivore, herbivore, plant and decomposer species within ecosystems. His research resolves the rules-of life that explain how interdependencies vary in time and space, and what they mean for ecosystem nutrient cycling, carbon storage, and resiliency to global change. His work informs environmental ethics and stewardship to enhance animal conservation to sustain ecosystems, their functions, and services they provide to humankind. At Yale, he teaches courses on the role of humans in nature and how humans can coexist harmoniously with nature. He currently provides scientific support to the Global Rewilding Alliance’s effort link animal conservation to carbon uptake and storage in ecosystems—called Animating the Carbon Cycle.
Animating the Carbon Cycle webinar (59:50 minutes)
Read the video transcript here
0:04
So, hello everyone, welcome. I’m Angela Burrow. I am on the board of the
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Wildlife Society Habitat Restoration Working Group. Um, and the habitat restoration working group provides a
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forum for TWWS members to share their experiences, techniques, and information
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relative to restoring wildlife populations and degraded habitats. The
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working group meets monthly to plan activities and actions. We welcome all members and we regularly solicit
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feedback from them. Some of our regular activities include organizing comments
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or statements on relevant policy or management actions, organizing the
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annual symposium um at the annual meeting. Most recently, we have our
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upcoming symposium at the annual meeting titled Reing and Landscape Scale
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Ecosystem Restoration, a wildlife perspective. If you’re attending the annual meeting, we do hope to see you
1:03
there and at our working group annual meeting. Also, as part of the annual
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meeting, we offer scholarship and travel awards um whether you’re presenting or not presenting. So, that application is
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currently open until September 1st and accessible via the working group website, which you can find if you just
1:23
go to the main uh wildlife society website. We also sponsor programs such
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as this webinar. If you’d like to connect, please reach out to us on our website, on Facebook, or via email. Um,
1:37
and you can also add the Habitat Restoration Working Group to your TWWS membership when you renew. And now I
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have the honor to present Dr. Oz Smith Schmidz. Dr. Schmidz is the Oller
1:50
Professor of Population and Community Ecology at the Yale School of the Environment. His work aims to make sense
1:57
of nature’s complexity arising from the interdependencies and ecoevolutionary
2:02
interactions among the diversity of carnivore, herbivore, plant, and decomposer species within ecosystems.
2:10
His research resolves the rules of life that explain how interdependencies vary
2:16
in time and space and what they mean for ecosystem nutrient cycling, carbon
2:21
storage, and resiliency to global change. His work informs environmental ethics and stewardship to enhance animal
2:29
conservation to sustain ecosystems, their functions and services they provide to humankind. At Yale, he
2:36
teaches courses on the role of humans in nature and how humans can coexist harmoniously with nature. He currently
2:44
provides scientific support to the global reing allianc’s effort to link
2:50
animal conservation to carbon uptake and storage in ecosystems. This is called
2:55
animating the carbon cycle. Dr. Smith, thank you very much, Angela. Um, let me
3:02
get the presentation going. And then um where are we? View
3:09
slideshow. Okay.
3:14
Um thank you thank you all for joining. U I’m going to give a presentation on it’s a it’s a new idea. It hasn’t been
3:21
widely proven yet. Um it’s it’s a it’s a frontier in scientific research and um
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but I think it’s exciting because uh doing some calculations and preliminary assessments um suggests that there’s a
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lot of promise in in pursuing this avenue of scientific research as well as
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um conservation uh practice. Um I’m I’m I’m going to give a presentation I think
3:47
hopefully around 45 minutes um and then leave some time for Q&A afterward.
3:53
Before I get into um you know the nuts and bolts of what I’m going to talk about, let’s let’s just re really just
3:59
recap the fundamental issue that we have to face here in terms of animating the carbon cycle or even just what we’re
4:06
trying to do to to arrest um climate change. Um what what I have here is an
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illustration of sort of a a cartoon of the atmospheric CO2 buildup over time
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since the start of the industrial revolution. And that’s what we’re trying to deal with right now. It’s the legacy
4:22
of of the CO2 emissions um mainly CO2 emissions but also methane emissions and
4:28
other pollutants in the atmosphere that cause greenhouse gas warming. Um and you
4:34
know we’ve seen an acceleration of that throughout history. Um the Paris climate agreement the at the COP at Paris you
4:42
know they negotiated to decarbonize the economy by 2050. What that means is they
4:48
they plan to have net zero CO2 emissions to the atmosphere by 2050.
4:55
But the problem is even if we reach net zero by 2050 or even tomorrow, um we
5:03
still have about 500 gatons of of CO2 in the atmosphere. That is 500 billion tons
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of CO2 in the atmosphere. um that is a legacy of of the buildup since the start
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of the industrial revolution. Um so what we really need to do um is is address
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this issue of the legacy 500 gigatons of CO2 because if we don’t we will still
5:28
blow through two degrees C of warming on the planet even though we might reach net zero emissions. That is we’re
5:35
stopping emissions but we still have a legacy that could heat the planet. And so what we really need to strive for is
5:42
come up with ways of of sucking that CO2 out of the atmosphere and storing it on
5:47
the planet. That is what we need to do is enhance the Earth’s carbon dioxide sink strengths. And we call that
5:53
negative CO2 emissions, right? Because we’re we’re taking it out of the atmosphere into the planet. And that’s
5:59
why it’s negative, not positive to the atmosphere. And if we can do that um
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there is a hope that we can keep global warming below 2° C.
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So how do we enhance the earth’s sink strengths? Um there this is what’s called natural climate solutions as one
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set of solutions. So there are technology solutions that people have proposed, right? Scrubbing um
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atmospheric CO2 uh with with technology and then storing it in physical places,
6:30
you know, that are created like like deep wells of abandoned mines or whatever. Um but there is also nature
6:38
that we can rely on and all what we have to do is think about enhancing natural climate solutions or nature-based
6:44
climate solutions. And this is where restoration and rewing and conservation really comes in. If we’re mindful of
6:51
conservation with an aim to um uh enhance the earth’s sink strengths, then
6:56
there’s sort of a win-win for conservation, restoration, and and mitigating climate uh climate change.
7:04
What we need to do though if if in in a reasonable amount of time between um you
7:11
know now and 2100 we need to start now if we want to do this because we’re
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certainly not going to reach net zero emissions by 2050 the way things are going on this planet but we can still
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you know do the other side and and really start drawing out CO2 out of the atmosphere and and to get rid of that
7:29
legacy 500 gat tons we need to um suck out about 6 to 7 gigatons per year
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between now and 2100 over the next 75 years. Um and and and uh that will get
7:42
that legacy out of the atmosphere. That assumes we reach net zero, right? If we don’t reach net zero, there’ll still be
7:48
more that we have to suck out. But but the argument is let’s assume we’re going to reach net zero then the additional
7:53
work we need to do is get another 6 to 7 gigatons out of the atmosphere every year.
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Now there are a lot of nature-based or natural climate solutions that have already been proposed and there’s been a
8:05
lot written about that and there are two strategies that people have suggested that collectively actually help us
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achieve the goal of of negative emissions. So part of it is um protecting against the release of
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atmospheric CO2 that is protecting those ecosystems that are already there and
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functioning and that are healthy and let’s not exploit those. let’s protect them and make sure that they can still
8:31
function and capture CO2. And between this, you know, uh this is what we call
8:36
avoided emissions. So we prevent the emissions by protecting forest, protecting wetlands, protecting
8:42
grasslands, and maybe changing our management of timberlands and grasslands a little bit. Um together that comes up
8:50
an avoidance of 5 gigatons. Okay, but that’s part of the you know, if we didn’t do that, we would have to have a
8:56
bigger problem. we would have to suck up even more. So the other side of the coin is enhancing sink strength, right? And
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and right now given everything that people have sort of looked at that is
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managing croplands better, managing forest, managing livestock, restoring
9:14
forests, foresting, uh protecting wetlands and restoring wetlands and all
9:20
of that activity right now if we were ambitious could get us another 5 gigatons, right? um of of enhanced
9:27
capture. So we can avoid emissions but we can also enhance emissions by 5
9:33
gigatons. Now remember I said we need to suck up 6 to 7 between now and 2100. Um
9:39
and so there’s an annual 1 to 2 gigaton per year shortfall.
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Now, the thing is what’s conspicuous here is that there’s only one picture of an animal here, and that’s a a a
9:53
livestock, a domesticated animal. What about wild animals, right? They don’t
9:58
even figure into the calculus. Nobody even thinks about wild animals in in this story.
10:04
And part of the reason is is because animals have presumed not to be abundant enough to make an impact on the carbon
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cycle. So if you go to ecology 101 and learn about ecosystem science and and
10:16
the pyramid of life and pyramid of biomass, we know and this is an ecological fact, an ecological rule. If
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you in terrestrial systems especially, if you were to calculate how much biomass or measure how much biomass
10:28
there was in plant trophic level, in the herbivore trophic level, in the carnivore trophic level, what you would
10:34
find is you get a pyramid of biomass or numbers. Um because you know the vegetation is orders of magnitude higher
10:41
than the the things that eat the vegetation and those things are order of magnitude higher than the meateers, the
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carnivores that eat the herbivores. Um but the problem is that’s that’s only
10:54
half of the story or less than half the story because there are also feedbacks that these animals have and these
11:00
feedbacks are currently not really appreciated and accounted for. Um, and
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what that means is even though the animals are present, their feedback effects and what they do to these bigger
11:11
biomass pools and I include soils here or sediments where they you also have
11:16
huge biomass of of microbes and and also organic carbon. Um, these animals can
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have disproportionate impacts on these larger pools by virtue of of their
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interaction, not necessarily the present, but their interaction with these larger pools.
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Now, um, you know, again, when people think of animals, they think of, okay,
11:41
there’s certain amount of biomass carbon that the animals hold, but that’s going to be way too small to suck up all of
11:47
that, you know, uh, uh, one to one to two gigatons per year more um, than
11:53
what’s already being taken up. There’s not enough room on the planet. there’s not enough energetic efficiency on the
11:59
planet for these animals to really um u make a difference in terms of biomass
12:04
carbon storage. Um they do contribute to the carbon cycle though through respiration just like soils and plants
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do but that’s also a minuscule amount right and and so most of the action is
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really in the plant and soil uh realm um and the animals release a little bit um
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but again because of this pyramid of biomass people have assumed no that’s it
12:27
animals aren’t going to work but that’s absolutely the wrong way to think about it because it turns out what the animals
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do in terms of their foraging And in terms of their recycling feedback as part of the story, um they can
12:40
fundamentally change these biomass pools here in the plant and the soil sea storage. And that’s where they’re going
12:46
to have their dramatic impact. And there are several mechanisms that
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that that they can do that by. Um and they’re pretty uniform, you know. So so
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it’s either foraging or through nutrient deposition or disturbance or organic carbon deposition or seed dispersal. And
13:04
all of those, you know, the these these several ways that the animals can impact
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transcend everything from the high tundra to the deepest ocean. All animals do these kinds of things in their
13:16
respective ecosystems except maybe in the marine realm. There isn’t much seed dispersal in the deep ocean, but
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certainly there is in salt marshes, seaggrasses, kelp forest, and coral reefs. Okay? So animals, you know, the
13:31
there’s a unifying principle here. there’s a common mechanism among all animals across ecosystems.
13:38
Let me give you several examples of how that might happen and why animals are important. So let’s go to the higher
13:45
Arctic as a start. And what you have, let’s suppose you don’t have um large vertebrates like caribou and muskoxin up
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in the high Arctic. What you get is a proliferation of shrubs in the Arctic tundra and the and the shrubs grow and
13:59
they grow high and into and and and also what you have in the winter is you have a high snow pack. The snow falls um and
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what it does is it insulates the the perafrost but it in insulates it to keep
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the summer temperatures or the summer effects warm so it doesn’t cool down. So if you have really cold winter air here,
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it doesn’t necessarily penetrate the perafrost because the deep snow acts as an insulation barrier to keep that soil
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warm or that perafrost warm. And so what happens is you start getting organic car, you know, the perafrost melting and
14:34
the organic carbon being decomposed by um um microorganisms.
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But also when you have the spring um you know when when you start getting spring
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and summer the solar radiation comes in it hits the shrubs and it gets absorbed
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and that get that heat gets transmitted to the perafrost and also adds to the melting. Okay. And what happens is that
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this um ice wedge the frozen perafrost carbon melts. you know, the ice melts
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and so you have organic carbon here that is exposed and it gets decomposed and
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because this is a moist environment um you get inorg
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an anorobic decomposition of of of this organic carbon and it gets released as
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methane. Now methane on a on a shorttime horizon can be 78 times more potent than
15:26
CO2 in terms of its heat trapping capacity. So, that’s a big worry if we
15:31
start to see the higharctic um perafrost start to melt. What these animals do
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though is they they consume those shrubs, right? So, they they keep the vegetation low. So, you’ve got your
15:43
grasses and sedges and mosses that are protected by these animals here. And
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then also um they trample the snow pack so that you get a very thin layer and so
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the cold air can penetrate the soil surface and therefore keep the perafrost frozen. On top of that in the spring
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there are no shrubs to impede the solar radiation so you get reflection and that’s the albido effect. The solar
16:06
radiation gets reflected back to the atmosphere. So even though these animals might not be highly abundant in terms of
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the carbon that they store, they can have a huge impact on, you know, the the um uh frozen organic carbon that that’s
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stored in in the high Arctic. In grassland ecosystems, um, prairie
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grasslands, um, if you don’t have these animals present, you certainly do get plant production and you get recycling,
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but it’s slow recycling of organic matter and nutrients and microbial breakdown of that releases nitrogen so
16:41
that you get a complete nitrogen cycle and and productivity. But these animals
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through their grazing and again the grasses tend to be adapted to herbivy and respond to herbivy. So these animals
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can actually stimulate the productivity of grasslands. Um and likewise because
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of their urine that they uh release, it’s already a fertilizer in inorganic form. So it can actually bypass m the
17:06
need for microbial decomposition and actually speed up nitrogen cycling and
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therefore you get a much more productive grassland. And because that grassland’s more productive, production is derives
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from photosynthesis. you get more photosynthetic uptake of uh carbon dioxide and um a lot more organic matter
17:27
um buildup and that then ends up in the soil for soil storage. So again these
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animals might not be highly abundant relative to the vegetation on the plane but um their their interactions with the
17:41
vegetation can actually speed up and increase the amount of of carbon that can be captured
17:47
in forest ecosystems. boreal forest ecosystems. Um in the absence of wolves,
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let’s say, um what you have is you have moose foraging and moose prefer certain
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vegetation types like fast growing aspen and uh sometimes they eat some spruce.
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And so what these moose do is they open the canopy up a little bit and so you get solar radiation coming in and
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warming the soil surface and so you get decomposition of an otherwise very cool
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forest floor. um and and that sort of speeds up microbial decomposition of the
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organic matter that’s stored in the soil. Also, their herbivy and their CO2 release. Um you get less organic matter
18:27
hitting the soil surface and so you get a high release of CO2. With wolves
18:33
present controlling moose abundances, um what you end up getting is a much more luxurant forest regrowth and forest uh
18:40
development, stand development. the soil stays cool and you get a lot of slower
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carbon cycling in the soil. Most of it gets stored in the cool soil as organic
18:50
carbon. Again, these animals are not very abundant compared to all of the trees, but their interactions and and
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the way the the wolves might change the moose of population densities, but also their foraging interactions with the
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trees can fundamentally change um the soil carbon capture and storage.
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In tropical systems, um what you have is canopy trees tend to be the carbon
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densest trees. Um and they also produce big fruits and and big seeds of of of
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fruit uh big seeded fruits. So you need a lot of large vertebrates um uh to
19:30
disperse the seeds in the in these systems. What happens is um in the tropical forest, we’ve seen this happen
19:36
is there’s defation. these animals are being reduced in abundance because of over hunting or or fragmentation of of
19:43
the landscape. And so the loss of these herbivores actually leads to the loss of these dense canopy forest trees because
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their seed dispers are gone or largely diminished. And so you store less carbon
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in this kind of system when the animals are absent than when they’re present. The other advantage is with these
20:00
animals, they actually have the the seeds are released in dung piles. So these are actually um piles of of
20:08
nutrients that promote germination and then the production of these trees. Plus
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their urine release leads to fast nutrient cycling in a in a soil that’s really nutrient poor. And so together
20:20
these animals actually promote um the production of canopy large canopy carbon
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dense trees. And so they can really um boost the amount of carbon in in um uh
20:32
tropical forests. So um you know how how large is the
20:37
animal effect? How important are animals? Um so we’ve been able to actually get some information based on
20:45
scientific studies that have been done classic studies. Um and these included
20:50
wilderbeast and the Serengeti um wilderbeast that were almost lost to uh Rendapest but they have recovered and
20:57
people were able to account for how much carbon um now the Serengeti actually holds. um uh given their their
21:05
restoration and and the population rebound, but also we’ve done calculations for what wolves do in terms
21:10
of controlling moose populations in in the boreal forest. There have been work
21:16
done now on tigers throughout Southeast Asia in force where they’re present versus complimentary forest types, but
21:23
um they’ve been extrepated by humans. The sea otter, everybody knows the sea otter restoration story and and there’s
21:29
a carbon story there. muskox in the higharctic, marine fish, people have
21:34
calculated marine fish, and then sharks and on coral reefs specifically. And so
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if you add all of these amounts up, it comes to 5.96 gatons of carbon dioxide
21:47
per year. Okay? So that’s 5 billion tons that is part of these protected intact
21:54
lands or or oceans, if you will. Also, most of it is in the ocean. So the ocean doesn’t even figure into this
22:00
calculation. 5.6 4.4. So somewhere we’re not accounting fully for what animals are
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doing. But the other problem is um in these kinds of systems here we only
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assume that the plants matter, right? So we’ll let the animals go if they get over hunted. So what? Well, if we do
22:19
that, these animals can contribute significantly to that. So we might lose that. But because we’re not accounting
22:25
for it, we’re not measuring that. We’re we’re actually um enabling people to you
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know over hunt or extrepate animals like callulling wolves in a boreal forest so we can protect you know other species.
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Uh killing tigers or hunting tigers for their body parts and things like that or even people have proposed culling sea
22:45
otterters because of the abalone fishery is being jeopardized by them. And so um
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you know we got to think about wildlife conservation handinhand with protecting intact lands. And we’re just learning
22:57
this now and we do have time to change our ways but we really need to do that and this carbon story tells us that
23:03
right but this isn’t not being accounted for right now. Um in terms of enhanced
23:08
sinks though on the other side of the story um people have looked at uh sorry
23:14
people have looked at the restoration of forest elephants in the Congo basin come up with a number what they do within
23:20
their home range in that region. bison in the American West. And this is just an estimate for what bison could do in
23:27
25% of their historical range. Um just those parts of the range where there is
23:32
less little or limited conflict with humans and and livestock hurting. And then there are beaver globally. And then
23:39
there are sperm whales and baine whales in the southern ocean. And again, this you know it’s 78 billion tons. it’s it’s
23:48
approaching 1 to two gigatons of the shortfall that we have already. These are just a few species. You know, it’s
23:55
the tip of the iceberg in terms of species that we might consider. And so,
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you know, the these restoration numbers, the reason I put these numbers up here is because they’re on the same scale as
24:08
what people are do talking about in terms of global scale um uh nature-based
24:15
climate solutions, but it’s also numbers on a scale that IPCC is working at.
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And the beauty of this is that these are regional effects. They’re not necessarily global effects. So people,
24:27
you know, these animals are in people’s backyards, um, metaphorically speaking. And so, you know, each country has has
24:34
wildlife species that they can work with and and and actually steward and and restore and and maintain those
24:41
populations. And again, this is just a global map of where all of these assessments were done.
24:48
There are policy implications here, right? So um part of the Paris climate agreement was that countries would do
24:53
their nationally determined contributions and come up with action plans for meeting the goals of the cl um
25:00
Paris climate agreement. And so part of that is really doing an an inventory and
25:05
an accounting of the sources and amounts of CO2 and methane or greenhouse gases
25:12
actually that are released by different activities. And people have really looked at agriculture sector, you know,
25:18
obviously oil and gas, commercial activities, electric generation, industrial, etc., etc., but nowhere do
25:25
they actually think about the contributions from nature or uh the contributions from nature and animals.
25:32
And so these aren’t actually done as part of this accounting here. And so we’re leaving things on the table. And
25:38
as you can see, these numbers are in the billions of tons if we add it up over all the countries. And that means they
25:44
are huge. But what do they mean from a country level? So let’s go back. Let’s think about the Serengeti wilderbeast.
25:52
Um what the wilderbeast do in terms of carbon storage capture and storage and how they stimulate that by their grazing
25:58
activity and trampling and everything. They they add an equivalent of 28% of
26:04
the total fossil fuel emissions by Tanzania. their contribution that is in
26:09
their absence there would be 28% more fossil fuel emissions than than in their
26:15
presence. It’s a it’s a huge amount. Okay. Sharks and coral reefs across um
26:21
uh the world. You know, the amount of carbon that they contribute to storing is the equivalent of what Kuwait emits
26:28
each year. So, these are offsets in a sense, but I don’t want us to think of these as offsets because we still need
26:34
to reach net zero. Okay, we can’t do this without reaching net zero to to um
26:41
uh arrest climate change. Sea otterters 8% of the total greenhouse gas emissions
26:46
by British Columbia. That’s what they actually lead to sequestering of in the greywolves in the boreal forest of
26:53
Canada. It’s 47% of all of the fossil fuels emitted by by
26:59
uh uh in Canada. Muskox circumpolar Arctic 75% of the uh fossil fuel CO2
27:06
emissions um by of Norway marine fish and most of it is in the misopalagic
27:13
which is which is not being fished yet um that’s below it’s in the lower level of the ocean under the light zone that’s
27:20
where most of the fish biomass on this planet is but it’s not harvested but people are thinking of harvesting that
27:27
now because they’ve overfished the shoreline fisheries or the inshore fisheries. Now that amount is twice the total
27:34
fossil fuel emissions by the EU and Africa. So that’s a huge amount and it’s
27:39
not being accounted for anywhere in IPCC accounting or or global uh accounting.
27:47
African forest elephants in the Congo basin. Again, as I said, if we can restore them, um these are big numbers.
27:53
These are country level numbers or more than what the countries admit. And then the American bison alone, 12% of the
28:00
fossil fuel CO2 emissions of the USA could get stored in uh prairie
28:06
grasslands. That’s the equivalent of what the plain states emits every year, that 12%. So the American bison could
28:14
offset it, but again, I don’t want us to think of these as offsets. We have to think about these as addition in
28:20
addition to um reaching net zero. Now, there’s a caveat, though, right?
28:26
This isn’t always a rosy picture. Animals also can have negative effects and it’s just part of their ecology. And
28:32
so when there are negative effects, that could be um a decrease, you know, a a
28:38
one-fold to almost a 10-fold decrease in carbon storage relative to the
28:44
conditions where animals are absent. This is either from um experimental research or field surveys. Okay. And
28:51
likewise in terms of enhancing the carbon sync it can be 12 times more in some cases down to maybe one and a half
28:58
times more. But these are significant numbers right like in the absence of the animals we store much less carbon than
29:05
in their presence. And these are just you know people who have done studies field studies measured carbon in
29:11
different places um where the animals are present relative to similar conditions where the animals are absent.
29:17
These animals are having a huge impact. These animal effects though are hidden in plain sight. And so if they’re not
29:25
quantified, they won’t be managed or conserved. And so what we’ve done in in terms of
29:30
our research is developed a new carbon cycle that actually builds in the role of animals and quantifies the animal
29:36
effects. So it’s a basically uh the plants and soils is the classic carbon
29:41
cycle model where it accounts for photosynthesis, plant respiration, plant
29:47
recycling, um soil processes um and it does it in terms of carbon and nitrogen
29:53
dynamics because again the carbon cycle model recognizes that nitrogen or
29:58
phosphorus or limiting nutrients limit how much carbon can be taken up by plants. Um, so it has to be explicitly
30:05
in terms of carbon and nitrogen. So we’ve added the herbivore impacts. We’ve include their respiration, but we also
30:12
include their recycling effects, right? Their carbon in dung and their nitrogen in urine. And likewise the predators in
30:19
the system. And and so by, you know, integrating animals and plants, what
30:24
we’re doing is we’re also we’re accounting certainly for the carbon and biomass of all of these um uh components
30:30
of the ecosystem, but more importantly, we’re addressing these feedback effects and quantifying these feedback effects
30:36
and what they mean. And you can get data from the literature to parameterize these models um to come up with a first
30:44
approximation of the feasibility of what these animals can do. And we’ve done a several case studies. So the first would
30:50
be restoration of European bison in the Carpathian mountains in Romania. And so
30:56
you can get data for soil and vegetation in Carpathian grasslands. And you can
31:01
get data on um uh consumption rates and metabolic rates and recycling rates of
31:07
by by European bison. And if you do the modeling, what you find is that in this
31:14
region here where we focused on in the Tu Mountains, the uh restoration of of um European
31:22
bison can lead to 1.6 times more carbon taken up in that grassland ecosystem
31:28
than in their absence. So the animals are boosting this. um did an analysis for a rewing um
31:36
project in Chile in La Patagonia National Park. Um this park was established by turning um a a cattle
31:45
ranch back into natural wilderness and uh this is the Tomkins Foundation. Uh
31:51
Christine Tomkins was really instrumental in funding this, but it’s it’s really the project is run by Reing
31:57
Chile. And again we looked at the interactions between puma and guanico which is a camel uh um and then uh camel
32:06
related to uh vunia and llamas and things like that. So uh guano and then
32:12
grassland vegetation and soil. And if you do the modeling and accounting for all of these interactions, what you find
32:19
is that these animals can take up almost double cause the cause the ecosystem to
32:24
take up almost double what what the ecosystem would do without the animals. So that’s a pretty significant amount of
32:31
uptake. Um again, we’ve also done work for um a sort of
32:37
mixed scrub land forest, dry tropical forest in in Mexico. And here we’ve made
32:42
the model a little more complex where we’re looking at jaguars and pumas together feeding on their dominant prey
32:49
which are um white-tailed deer and collared peckery. And these animals
32:54
might mostly eat the shrub but they also use the vegetation for thermmorreulation. So they also release
33:00
dung and urine in those parts of the ecosystem. Even though they don’t eat in here, they can stimulate productivity
33:06
and and carbon storage in the dung and urine that they release. And when you account for those effects, what you find
33:12
is those dry tropical forests could across the dry tropical forest range in Mexico
33:20
lead to about 3.18 times more carbon stored in that ecosystem than without
33:26
the animals. Elephants again in in the Congo basin, right? the elephants, they feed on the
33:33
understory, they trample the understory, they change the competition with the overstory trees. They also release, you
33:39
know, fruits and that uh or they consume fruits and and release the uh the seeds
33:44
in the dung. And then through their dung al also they contribute to um carbon
33:51
storage in the soil. When you model that dynamic, what you find is you can get about 1.77 times more carbon with these
33:58
animals present than without in the Congo Basin region where they’re restoring these animals. And so these
34:04
this these modeling exercises are showing the promise. These aren’t validated yet. We still have to do a lot
34:10
of work to to measure what happens when the animals are absent versus presence, but we’re getting much better at doing
34:16
that. and and you know it seems like you know when we do it the modeling is validated and so um what we really need
34:24
to do is change a mindset in conservation and restoration. A lot of times we restore habitat with
34:31
the hope that these animals will come. Maybe what we need to think about is we need to bring the animals to actually
34:37
have the habitat come also. And so likewise with climate change, we commonly view climate change as causing
34:44
collateral damage to biodiversity. That is, we think of animals as unwitting victims that are stuck on an ill- fated
34:51
uh a ship that’s on an ill- fated voyage. But the alternative view, the
34:57
change in mindset, uh the change, oh sorry, the change in
35:03
mindset sees animals as important drivers of the climate shift. And so what we can really promote here is
35:10
biodiversity conservation through restoration and conservation um can also
35:15
help fix the climate change problem uh potentially again because of the negative effects that animals can can
35:21
have. We actually need to do more quantification of this find out which animals are have positive effects which
35:27
ones have negative effects. But there is promise to actually um think of animal
35:32
conservation as contributing and enhancing uh our ability to mitigate climate change. Um and so you know this
35:40
these these ideas are exciting to me because there’s it offers hope um new hope that we can sort of deal with two
35:46
problems headon on this planet and try and fix both the uh biodiversity crisis
35:52
and and and mitigate climate change at the same time. So, thank you very much for listening and I’m happy to engage in
35:59
discussion or questions that uh that people might have.
36:10
Everyone, you should have um the Q&A box down at the bottom and you can uh put
36:15
your questions in there and um I don’t know Oz, if you want me to read them as they come up or if you want to read them
36:22
out loud yourself. uh because I’m I’m not sure if others can see them once they’re posted.
36:32
Give everyone a few minutes to to think. Thank you so much for that. It’s really
36:39
exciting. And actually, I had a question while we were waiting. So, I work in wetland
36:46
systems. Um so, just wondering um what kind of thoughts or work that you’ve done um in wetland systems. I I saw you
36:53
mentioned beaver um but there’s lots of other animals that can have pretty big impacts on wetlands. So just wondering
37:00
your thoughts. Yeah. So um both positive and negative.
37:06
So a lot of you know the negative effects of the uh water foul waterfell are actually not good. They’re not
37:12
conducive to storing carbon because they promote methane release uh from wetlands. So that’s a case where um you
37:20
know you shouldn’t be pitching protecting wetlands and wildlife conservation at the same time and and we
37:26
shouldn’t also get rid of you know waterfall because they have a negative effect on the carbon cycle. It isn’t
37:32
always win-win. So we have to be careful there. Um, but there are fish that live in wetlands also that um eat
37:39
methanogenic bacteria. And so what they end up doing is actually promoting carbon storage in wetlands because the
37:46
the the bacteria that would normally break down the organic matter um are are less abundant. So it’s it’s again like
37:52
the the wolves, the moose, and the vegetation. This is fish, methanogenic
37:57
bacteria, organic carbon in in the wetlands. beavers. Um, it’s it’s a mixed
38:03
story because, you know, the wetlands could still emit a lot of methane if it’s a beaver swamp, but eventually
38:10
these beaver swamps fill in over time because of succession and become um uh wet meadows and and then uh those wet
38:18
meadows become bogs, right? Pete bogs and things like that. And that’s where you store a lot of carbon um ultimately.
38:26
So, we have to protect that too. Thank you. So question.
38:31
Yeah, we’ve got a lot of questions in here. Do you want to read them or you want me to read? Yeah, I can read them. I can read them.
38:37
So the first question by Meredith is what is the next direction for your research? Um yeah, I I I want to validate these
38:44
model predictions, but also part of the we’re we’re trying to fund raise um to
38:50
um develop a global hotspots map. So what we want to do is more modeling of more animals and and really try and find
38:57
those ecosystems globally where there’s high potential um and immediate high opportunity to do something um and um
39:07
and and and actually uh think about strategically you know informing where
39:12
we can have um some lowhanging fruit in terms of initiating rewing projects to
39:17
for for um animating the carbon cycle. So yeah, it’s it’s exciting both the validation and and the uh modeling side
39:25
of things. Next question there. What are your thoughts on the recent Greywolf call in BC? Um
39:32
you know it’s it’s this is always an interesting thing because um you know
39:37
hunters uh you know want their their game. People are worried about caribou especially woodland caribou and wolves
39:44
decimating their populations of an already threatened species. Um, but what
39:50
we aren’t accounting for is the role that wolves play in in regulating these populations and and the carbon
39:56
consequences of it. And again, because we’re not thinking about these animals in terms of their carbon contributions,
40:01
you know, we could, this is the irony, we could exacerbate global warming, which would then contribute to the
40:08
demise of these species by killing a predator that we think is going to cause the demise of these species. And so I
40:14
think you know what we have to become is much more sophisticated in our wildlife management and not just think about
40:20
things at a population level. We actually have to think about the ecosystem consequences of manipulating
40:26
wildlife populations. So um I what I’m arguing for is a more holistic
40:33
perspective in wildlife management and conservation as well. and and um uh you
40:40
know there there are other things that we can do to mitigate especially in boreal Alberta there there are other
40:46
things we could do to mitigate um caribou declines potentially um if we
40:51
would have done our our land use differently in terms of oil and gas development and that but there are
40:56
lessons to be learned um from that. Thank you for that question. Um, would
41:02
it be possible, this is from Megan, would it be possible to get a list of citations of research papers that were
41:07
referenced in this talk? Uh, yes. What I’ll do is send Angela a a a URL to the
41:14
Global Rewilding Alliance or if you want to Google it, you can do it. You just type in Global Reing Alliance Animating
41:20
the Carbon Cycle and all of the latest relevant literature is on that site and
41:25
it tells the whole story of what the Global Rewilding Alliance is doing for that. Um, okay. From Alicia, prescribed
41:33
burning is being used to restore ecosystems and wildlife habitat. Do you have thoughts or do you know of research that looks at net carbon uh emissions
41:41
between the short-term fire event and the long-term benefit of the restored habitat? Um,
41:47
the the only work I know about that um is is not necessarily in terms of using
41:55
fire as a management, but fire as a consequence. Um and that’s a lot of that’s in Africa. Um where they’re
42:02
looking also at wildlife and how wildlife might mitigate wildfire um in terms of their browsing and grazing and
42:08
whatnot. Um so the classic story for example in the Serengeti is that the
42:14
decimation of the wilderbeast because of reindepest led to 80% of the Serengeti
42:20
burning every year. Okay. So there was all this ungrazed vegetation. It burnt every year. um and it released all sorts
42:28
of CO2. So the Serengeti was a net source of CO2 to the atmosphere. As these wilderbeast rebounded to their
42:34
historical levels, and that’s 1.2 million animals, what we’re seeing now is that the fires uh you know, it’s a
42:41
fire driven system still, but only about 10 to 15% of the place burns that now.
42:46
Uh the rest is eaten, the vegetation is eaten, and then it’s incorporated as dung in the soil. So, um you know, uh
42:55
what what you have to do is think about if you’ve got a fireprone ecosystem and you use burning to manage it, um it may
43:03
not necessarily have carbon benefits. What you have to do is make sure that the vegetation when it regrows actually
43:08
becomes resistant to fire or have components of the restoration that make that resilient to fire or else you’re
43:15
going to lose all the carbon gains that you’ve made. So, that’s something again to keep in mind.
43:20
So, how do waterfall uh from Andrew, how do waterfall promote methane production?
43:25
Um, and would it be the same in saltwater wetland versus freshwater? Well, the answer for saltwater versus uh
43:32
freshwater is yes, because it happens in the higharctic as well as in freshwater prairie potholes. Um, it’s basically um
43:41
what you have is because these animals defecate in the water, you know, they nourish the water. Um again fast
43:48
recycling but you get promotion of alol production and when that alol production dies it’s in um in the water column and
43:56
so bacteria break it down but again it’s in anorobic conditions so it’s methanogenic bacteria that actually
44:03
decompose that organic matter and gets released as um methane not necessarily as CO2
44:09
um does this research cover soilbased plants regarding vegetation or is there
44:15
a way to include ocean plankton and fertilization. The whale story is the fertilization, whale fertilization. So,
44:21
people have measured um the the what they call the whale pump. So, the whales
44:27
go dive deep in the ocean. They feed on krill. They come to the surface waters to breathe and as they’re in the surface
44:33
waters, they release plumes of of nitrogen and iron. Iron’s a really
44:38
limiting nutrient in the ocean. Um in fact, the ocean is a really crappy place
44:43
to take up and store carbon. It’s just because of its vastness, it becomes really important. And so what the whales
44:50
do is they stimulate production of phytolankton in that light zone, the photonic zone. You know, the twilight
44:56
zone that I talked about where the bulk of the fish are is below that zone. So in the light zone, that’s where you get
45:01
the plankton production and and the carbon uptake and capture. Um so um
45:06
whales can uh contribute to that, but there’s still a lot of controversy right now about how much whales contribute to
45:12
that. Um, so the jury is still out on whether whales are going to be uh super viable as some people are touting them.
45:19
Um, so keep stay tuned on that. That that that’s an ongoing story.
45:25
Uh, from Michelle, I’m interested in learning more and getting involved with this research. I’m involved in carbon
45:30
capture research study of an artificial reef in the Gulf. Are there plans to expand more ocean fawn effects on carbon
45:36
reduction? So part of our modeling effort, we have a collaborator who’s um
45:42
I’m I’m a terrestrial ecologist. So uh a collaborator um is working on marine
45:49
systems and so they’re modeling those kinds of systems and really thinking about that. But I am doing a project
45:54
right now to model um dong impacts on seaggrass meadows in in Bahrain with a
46:00
collaborator in Bahrain. They want to use that information as part of their nationally determined contributions
46:06
calculations. And so that’s also been being promoted by the International Fund
46:11
for Animal Welfare. They’re they’re actually funding this study to do that. So there are efforts to do this. Um but
46:18
again, you know, people have done a lot of work with mangroves and and seaggrasses and done a lot of the carbon
46:23
dynamics there, but they haven’t included the story of the animals in that. Um, and it’s, you know, it it’ll
46:29
be interesting to see how that plays out. Um, from Fabio, most bison herds in
46:35
North America are small and confined to small prairie fragments. Do you think these small herd would also have a
46:40
meaningful contribution? My argument is any contribution is meaningful. Okay,
46:46
every little bit that we do contributes because you can add it up over the planet. And that’s again why the
46:51
regional solutions, why I like using animals. Animals can be used in your backyard. You can do things on your
46:57
front lawn with u arthropods, right? Uh spiders and grasshoppers or or insects.
47:03
Um it doesn’t matter. These principles are scalable from uh invertebrates all the way to the large herbivores. And
47:10
whatever little piece of property you have and what little you can do, it’s going to contribute. It’s going to add
47:16
up. It’s going to get the message out. Um you know, it it it it contributes to a holistic perspective on stewardship
47:22
and restoration. Um so I would encourage anybody who has the opportunity to do something even in a small fragment to
47:30
try and do it. Um Ray Dieser uh please describe one of the field
47:36
studies you are doing to validate your modeling results. Um well I’m about to
47:41
start a project in in Manitoba Canada where um it’s in collaboration with uh
47:47
Reing Canada. There’s a rancher there. He’s bought or a rancher. He isn’t a rancher really. He’s a He was a um um
47:56
tax lawyer um who bought ranch land, 100 100,000 acres of land and he um uh has
48:05
restored 5,000 wild bison on that landscape. And so we’re going to go
48:10
there. He’s he grazes them strategically. So there are places where they’re not being grazed. There are
48:15
places where they are being grazed. Um it’s a tall grass boreal parkland
48:21
transition. So he’s he’s seeing that the bison are actually knocking back the tree encroachment of of the boreal um
48:28
promoting grassland tall p tall grass prairie. And so what we hope to do is go
48:34
and systematically survey the carbon in in places where they’ve been restored and where they’re um actually not been
48:41
around again control study so that we can see and and actually validate the model predictions. So that’s that’s one
48:48
place. We have done some work in with Moose in Newf Finland, Canada, and we’re uh writing up the results of that work
48:54
already where we’ve actually measured um vegetation and soil carbon and also soil carbon flux um in in that landscape. So
49:03
again, yeah, it’s it I’m I’m I’m ambitious and hopefully I’d like to also work in in the Tarku mountains in in
49:10
Romania to do the European bison that we modeled. Thank you for that question. Uh Brian um
49:18
have you or any other researchers yet incorporated invertebrates um such as insect in your carbon cycling models?
49:25
Yes, I have. The the inspiration for the model that I presented here was actually done. It was developed and tested with
49:32
my study system that I work on uh spiders and grasshoppers. Um uh so that
49:38
work is published in in two journals uh ecology and and also in uh ecology and
49:44
evolution. Um, and so we’ve we’ve been actually able to predict how much more
49:50
carbon gets stored um and and do it pretty accurately um uh given
49:57
um the parameters that we were able to measure in the field. So yeah, um one of the reasons why I was really optimistic
50:03
about using this model and confident in its structure is that it has been tested out with the arthropod system.
50:13
Okay. All right. It looks like we don’t have any open questions, but we still have about
50:18
eight minutes left. So, if you have a question, please go ahead and type that into the Q&A. Um, and while we’re
50:25
waiting, I’ll give everyone a chance to to think. But I’ll mention that um the
50:30
habitat restoration working group um along with the wildlife society has recently joined the UN decade on
50:38
ecosystem restoration as a partner organization. So if you’re interested in
50:44
joining that um collaboration which is just really getting going um chance to
50:50
you know work at a global level on um climate change and restoration part of
50:56
that is rewing um as Oz has convinced me and I’m sure convinced many of us um
51:04
please reach out um because we’re forming those groups to work on those different pieces um that are under that
51:10
umbrella right now. And and to add to that, Angela, the UN decade of restoration has uh adopted
51:18
animating the carbon cycle as part of um a portfolio. So um you’ll see it mentioned there too.
51:26
That’s great to hear. I think just you know just for some food
51:33
for thought um you know the classic restoration has always been uh the you
51:38
know the field of dreams idea you know if you build it they will come um uh and
51:43
when we say they will come it’ll be animals um but you know I I’m ascribing
51:48
more to the an alternative view that is if they come you will build it right so
51:54
again taking a more holistic perspective it’s not just sort of bottom up building
51:59
up the system. It’s also including the top down effects. You can’t restore a
52:05
tropical forest if you don’t have the frugavores. You have to have the frugavores there to actually rebuild the
52:10
tropical forest trees. And so thinking about things in terms of both the bottom up, you know, trying to establish
52:17
vegetation, but also trying to bring back the animals so that they can integrate and be part of that cycle. Um,
52:23
that’s sort of a new way of thinking of restoration. And and in that sense, wildlife conservation becomes integral
52:30
to restoration and then maybe a necessary component of of restoration.
52:52
So are there from Meredith, are there papers you have published that you would recommend to researchers interested in
52:59
this area? Again, I would recommend you go to the global rewing alliance
53:05
uh web page and um type in animating the carbon cycle in the search and that’ll
53:11
pop up all of the relevant literature, not just my own, but also other studies that have popped up like the there’s a
53:17
big tiger analysis that has had been published in in in um global change biology um as as well as some modeling
53:26
re restoring wolves in Scotland and what that means for carbon storage. So um you
53:31
know those those stories are presented on that web page um and and that’s where you can get really up-to-date
53:38
information because they have staff on in place to to actually update with the with the scientific content.
53:46
So another um question from Mikey. Your work put a large emphasis on rewing. How
53:53
readily do you think this can be applied to urban ecology as well as in wilding cities? Again, um the when we talk about
54:02
rewing, it isn’t just the large animals, right? It’s it’s also the arthropods, the insects, and and thinking about
54:08
insects and the functional analoges of that insects are to the large vertebrates. And and if you think about
54:14
that, like a grasshopper in a prairie grassland, you know, a bison doesn’t necessarily compete strongly with an
54:21
elk. actually its stronger competitor is a bison met um analog grasshopper
54:28
because they eat the same vegetation and then there’s another grasshopper that eats the same vegetation as as um elk
54:35
and so there’s a replication of that you know trophic structure if you have bison elk prong horn big horn sheep mu deer
54:43
etc going all the way down to gophers or whatever you’ve got a parallel structure
54:48
in terms of body size differences and forging strategies in the grasshopper community there. And so there they are
54:55
functional analog. So you can quickly do things in urban areas without bringing in the scary beasts that you know uh
55:01
freak people out and actually do things in your backyard with with arthropods. Um but you got to think about them as
55:06
functional, not just by species. Um and and you can get a lot of things done that are really cool.
55:13
Got just a couple more minutes. So, if you have a a burning question, um, please post it now. Um, or you’ll have
55:21
to email Dr. Schmidz. Mary quickly asks, “Is there a carbon
55:26
debt associated with reing or is it more of a build it and they will come?” Um,
55:32
it’s more, at least now the way we’re looking at it, it’s it’s more of a if we build it, they will come.
55:40
Courtney, a complicated question, but what would you say to those who state we shouldn’t have to speak about the carbon
55:45
benefits of rewalding to justify wildlife conservation efforts? Again, um
55:51
it it always comes down to that. Uh but the thing is, uh if as I showed with
55:58
with the avoided emissions, these animals are part of the avoided emissions. So we actually have to think
56:04
holistically and if we don’t think about protecting animals and their conservation
56:09
um uh we could actually uh jeopardize existing uh nature-based climate
56:15
solutions. But on the other hand also um as I said animals can have negative
56:21
effects. So what we have to be do is a sober analysis and and actually declare what our values are. Are they for
56:27
wildlife or are they for ecosystem management? I’m of the of a perspective
56:33
and my values are for ecosystem management rather than just specific wildlife species necessarily. And so um
56:41
that’s sort of the lens I’m presenting here. Um but there’s nothing wrong with just justifying wildlife conservation in
56:48
terms of wildlife species and and making sure that these living wonderful beings, sensient beings are part of our world.
56:55
Um that’s that’s an important dimension and and it shouldn’t be forgotten and and um also the people that steward the
57:03
land. We can’t displace them and we have to think about them. So um uh you know
57:08
that’s that’s where we where we need to go with with a lot of this. So it’s an important question and it’s a really
57:14
important philosophical question. Uh an anonymous attendee in the private sector
57:20
there’s often a financial limitation what we can apply in our restoration projects. uh we have to see some kind of
57:25
return or cost-saving strategy. Wildlife are often a secondary benefit. Um could
57:31
you speak how we might rationalize implementing this approach to mitigation sites? Again, um
57:38
there’s a whole field now of biodiversity credits, but it’s uh the finance there is minimal compared to the
57:43
carbon credits. Um and so I think um in terms of carbon finance, so one of the
57:51
problems I think with a lot of conservation right now, it’s still phil philanthropic. So people give money,
57:56
hope the project goes, but the project doesn’t get sustained because people run out of interest in the project, they’re
58:03
moving their philanthropy to something else. So what my view is is that if we truly want to have um nature as part of
58:10
our systems, we actually have to figure out how nature can be self- sustaining in terms of all of the ecosystem
58:16
service, not just carbon, in terms of all of the ecosystem services and health benefits they provide to humans. But
58:22
then as part of stewardship, we actually have to think about what do we give back to ecosystems to make sure they stay in
58:28
in in a sustainable way. And so if we think about funding mechanisms to pay
58:33
people to steward nature um through maybe carbon finance, maybe carbon off
58:38
or biodiversity offsets or biodiversity finance or whatever sort of ecosystem
58:44
service that’s available. Um I think what we what we’re doing is we’re free free riding on nature a little too much
58:50
right now. And so, you know, we we do have to think about the economic value
58:56
of that natural capital and and actually pay people on the land that are
59:01
preserving that right now that we’re freeriding and actually pay them the true value of of their service to us in
59:08
terms of stewarding and protecting nature. Also, we are out of time now. I do want to
59:15
respect Dr. Smith’s time. Um, there’s a few questions in the chat. I’ll send those over to you via email, um, Dr.
59:23
Smith. Um, but we’ll go ahead and and close now to to keep your time. Uh, and
59:31
these are great questions, though. Yeah, absolutely. Wonderful. Um, and great conversation. So, I I appreciate
59:38
that. And thank you everyone. Thank you for your time.