#mountain forests

Shipboard for Tobias Fangor and Rachel Berenson (Animorphs) late 90s/early 00s/punk/grunge/skate/emo music/birds of prey/wild cats/mountain forests/wilderness/resistance/anarchy/thrillseeking/the sky/space themes For an anon~ Hope you like the look!! ^^

Excerpt from this story from the Wildlife Conservation Society:

A WCS-coauthored study reveals that global mountain forests – critically important to wildlife – are vanishing at an accelerating rate with an area twice the size of Norway lost between 2001-2018.

The new study, published in One Earth, is led by Southern University of Science and Technology and co-authored by scientists at the Wildlife Conservation Society, the University of Leeds, Mae Jo University, and the University of Hong Kong.

The results showed that 78.1 million hectares (301,545 square miles) of mountain forest was lost between 2001-2018 worldwide with rates nearly doubling after 2010, showing a sharp acceleration and pointing to a potentially increased risk of mountain forest loss in the future.

Mountains provide critical habitat for more than 85 percent of all of the world’s bird, mammal, and amphibian species and are globally recognized for their high conservation value. Forest-dwelling mountain species often have very small ranges, so even small amounts of forest loss can appreciably increase their risk of extinction.

The authors combined high-resolution satellite measurements of forest loss with maps of mountainous terrain to create detailed maps of where, when, and how much forest loss occurred during each year between 2001-2018.

Despite the high rates of mountain forest loss observed, the authors also revealed that protected areas within regions of high biodiversity showed much lower rates of loss. This emphasizes the important roles that protected areas play in retaining forest habitat and conserving wildlife.

The study also determined that rates of forest loss varied regionally. Tropical mountain forest loss accounted for 32.9 Mha of all forest loss, compared to 27.9 Mha and 17.2 Mha for temperate and boreal mountain forests, respectively. Tropical mountain forests also had by far the fastest rates of forest loss acceleration—nearly 3 times faster than temperate mountain forests and over 8 times faster than boreal mountain forests.