NEWS: "African forest elephants help in the fight against climate change"

With all the bad news we are hearing these days, I thought a piece of happy news about how African forest elephants have been discovered to help in the fight against climate change might bring a smile to our faces. 

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) reported that elephants that call the Central African forest home have been discovered to play an important role in carbon sequestration and thus, climate change mitigation. There were once over 1.1 million forest elephants that roamed the continent but with increasing poaching and deforestation, the populations have severely suffered and are now considered "vulnerable" by the IUCN. 

However, they play a crucial role within the Congo Basin as "environmental engineers." As they travel through the forest looking for food, they thin out young trees - that are in competition for water, space and light - by either consuming or stepping on them. They have a significant impact on the young tree growth due to their size and appetite, which means that the young trees that do survive have a notable advantage from the reduction in competition for water and light. It has been proven in a study by Berzaghi et al, 2019 that forests that contain elephants lead to much bigger and taller tree growth, which in turns means more tree biomass able to capture carbon. Megaherbivores in general have a profound effect on ecosystems and biogeochemical cycles as they consume biomass and transport nutrients. 

    In the Congo Basin, elephants were shown to have a long term effect on Above Ground Biomass (AGB) levels between 250-1000 years after their introduction. However, Net Primary Production (NPP) was found to be systematically lower when elephants were present. This illustrates that on a long term scale, forests that contain elephants have more above ground biomass from taller and larger trees as a result of elephant disturbance. 

    It is estimated that if elephant population return to their original numbers, it would lead to a carbon capture equivalent to more that 6000 metric tons of CO2 per square kilometre of forest. That is over 14 times more than what New York City's Central Park trees capture. 

If we give economic value to elephants for the ecosystem service they provide, each one would be worth over $1.75 million. 

To learn more about how African forest elephants help in the fight against climate change, watch this short video. 


 

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