In the țarcui mountains of Romania, a pioneer experience changes the atmosphere rewilding. From 2014, around 100 European bisons were gradually reintroduced to the region, having been destroyed by hunting over 200 years ago. They now have more than 170 and pay for some 48 square kilometers. It is a success in itself. But there is more in this project than simply bringing back the big animals. Their area has also become a carbon hoover, sucking around 200,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide from the air each year, which is equivalent to taking 43,000 gasoline cars off the road.
The bison themselves is not an important carbon well. It is their influence on the widest environment – soil compacting, dispersing the seeds and creating various habitats through their navigation – which has killed its ability to absorb carbon. The area in which they wander is now looming 10 times the quantity it was before the bison was reintroduced.
The experience of the țarcu mountains is the first test of a concept that Oswald SchmitzAn ecologist at the University of Yale, complaints have the potential to restore the atmosphere in a previous state and therefore to help stop climate change. Schmitz and his collaborators argue that if similar projects were deployed around the world, both on land and in the sea, a significant quantity of carbon would disappear.
These researchers now build their evidence and allow their plans to be perfect. Meanwhile, however, some climatologists have raised concerns that try to put …
