| Literature DB >> 29483681 |
James E M Watson1,2, Tom Evans3, Oscar Venter4, Brooke Williams5,3, Ayesha Tulloch5,3, Claire Stewart5, Ian Thompson6, Justina C Ray7, Kris Murray8, Alvaro Salazar5, Clive McAlpine5, Peter Potapov9, Joe Walston3, John G Robinson3, Michael Painter3, David Wilkie3, Christopher Filardi10, William F Laurance11, Richard A Houghton12, Sean Maxwell5, Hedley Grantham5,3, Cristián Samper3, Stephanie Wang3, Lars Laestadius13, Rebecca K Runting5, Gustavo A Silva-Chávez14, Jamison Ervin15, David Lindenmayer16.
Abstract
As the terrestrial human footprint continues to expand, the amount of native forest that is free from significant damaging human activities is in precipitous decline. There is emerging evidence that the remaining intact forest supports an exceptional confluence of globally significant environmental values relative to degraded forests, including imperilled biodiversity, carbon sequestration and storage, water provision, indigenous culture and the maintenance of human health. Here we argue that maintaining and, where possible, restoring the integrity of dwindling intact forests is an urgent priority for current global efforts to halt the ongoing biodiversity crisis, slow rapid climate change and achieve sustainability goals. Retaining the integrity of intact forest ecosystems should be a central component of proactive global and national environmental strategies, alongside current efforts aimed at halting deforestation and promoting reforestation.Entities:
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Year: 2018 PMID： 29483681 DOI： 10.1038/s41559-018-0490-x
Source DB: PubMed Journal: Nat Ecol Evol ISSN： 2397-334X Impact factor: 15.460