In 2019, ecologist Thomas Crowther and his team published a bold statement in the journal Science, declaring natural forest restoration as the "best climate change solution." A colleague from the World Wildlife Fund warned this could be career suicide, arguing that reducing greenhouse gas emissions must take priority. Crowther agreed then and now but emphasized that "best" meant not just carbon impact but also improving human livelihoods and wellbeing, which amplifies the beneficial effect.
The Challenge of Technological Solutions
Many believe climate change requires immense technological innovation, geoengineering, or economic transformation. However, these often involve painful trade-offs. For example, stratospheric aerosol injection—creating reflective particle clouds to block the sun—could alter sunlight and rainfall patterns, disrupting crop growth. Direct air carbon capture holds potential but faces huge financial and energy costs, hindering large-scale deployment.
Nature’s Unique Advantage
One set of solutions presents no trade-offs when done right: restoring natural habitats like forests. This approach draws on ancient feedback loops that allowed life to flourish on Earth billions of years ago. Positive feedback loops occur when a process outcome amplifies the process itself—like anxiety about sleeping making it harder to fall asleep. These loops transformed a toxic planet into a hospitable Eden, providing food, oxygen, timber, medicine, and fuel.
However, human exploitation has triggered damaging feedback loops: resource use drives population growth and warming, releasing carbon from soil and drying forests, which store less moisture and cause further drying. Many such loops now threaten to tip the planet into a new state.
Harnessing Feedback Loops for Recovery
Feedback loops are not inherently good or bad; they are agents of change. Working with nature’s loops rather than distorting them can create self-sustaining momentum. In Argentina’s Iberá National Park, reintroducing jaguars reduced overgrazing by herbivores, allowing wetland plants to recover. Plants trap moisture in soil and provide habitat, making the area a spectacular wetland and carbon sink. After a few years, caimans, macaws, and giant otters returned.
Success Depends on Local Wellbeing
Nature-based solutions fail when oversimplified, such as monocultural tree planting that destroys native species or draining peatlands that release CO2. Success comes when revival of local biodiversity improves livelihoods and wellbeing of local people, making change sustainable. In Iberá, ecotourism created a "restoration economy" employing rangers, chefs, and guides. Similar projects abound: in Saseri, northern India, soil management and tree restoration improve yields for over 1,200 farmers; in Gujarat, Indigenous women restore mangroves to protect villages from erosion while boosting fisheries and crops.
A Call for Modest Investment
These projects show that remarkable innovation or great sacrifice is unnecessary. Redirecting a tiny fraction of global attention and wealth—perhaps less than 1% of GDP—toward rural land stewards can cumulatively capture hundreds of millions of tons of CO2. As nature bounces back, it provides livelihoods, food security, and carbon storage, but also revives hope, joy, and inspiration—essential emotional reactions that generate their own feedback loops for the future.
Prof Thomas Crowther is an ecologist and author of Nature’s Echo (Torva) and founder of Restor.eco.
