Ancient grasslands, once destroyed for development, can take 100 years to grow back
A new study indicates that ancient grasslands, often misclassified as wastelands, take over a century to recover once destroyed by development or industrial projects. Researchers found that secondary grasslands lack the biodiversity and ecological traits of original, ancient ecosystems.
Why it matters
This research challenges the common perception of grasslands as expendable land, emphasizing the long-term environmental cost of land-use changes.
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Ancient grasslands, one of the least valued ecosystems, support a phenomenal diversity of wildlife, create livelihoods of billions of pastoralists, and store one-third of Earth’s terrestrial carbon. But they are often considered “wastelands,” ripe for development, mining, power projects or afforestation drives.
Now a new global study has found that once destroyed, grasslands that grew for millennia can almost never regenerate the same way, at least for a century. When they do “recover,” the secondary grasslands consist of different species that are taller, with greater leaf area, found a study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
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