Monoculture plantations are bad news for biodiversity: Single-species plantations can endanger biodiversity with limited climate gains, The Guardian reported last week, citing a paper published in Trends in Ecology & Evolution. Tropical regions like the Amazon are the most susceptible to such non-native tree-planting schemes, threatening the flora and fauna in such regions.

What’s at risk here? Ecologists have warned that the rising plantations of commercial pine, eucalyptus, and teak in tropical forests are causing more harm than good leading to the drying out of native ecosystems, acidifying soils, forcing out native plants, and igniting wildfires, the paper notes.

It’s not all about carbon: “Despite the broad range of ecosystem functions and services provided by tropical ecosystems, society has reduced the value of these ecosystems to just one metric – carbon,” according to the paper. “It is broadly assumed that maximizing standing carbon stocks also benefits biodiversity, ecosystem function and enhances socioeconomic co-benefits – yet this is often not the case.”

False beliefs: Tree-planting schemes have been seen as vital to help alleviate global heating, with governments and the private sector working together on boosting forest areas globally to help achieve carbon neutrality. However, research shows that benefits for the climate are largely dependent on the scale and type of restoration being made, The Guardian writes. Giving room for natural forests to regenerate could help achieve more benefits than plantations, according to a cited 2019 study.