14 DAY TRIAL // About one million acres of farming lands were abandoned in the aftermath of the USSR's collapse. By the looks of it, these lands are now doing a great job at sucking up carbon emissions from our planet's atmosphere.
Writing in a recent issue of the journal Global Change Biology, European researchers say that, according to recent estimates, these lands currently rid the atmosphere of some 50 million tons of carbon on a yearly basis.
What's more, it appears that they have been doing so since 1990, Grist tells us.
“The collapse of collective farming in Russia after 1990 and the subsequent economic crisis led to the abandonment of more than 45 million ha of arable lands (23% of the agricultural area). This was the most widespread and abrupt land use change (LUC) in the 20th century in the northern hemisphere.”
“The withdrawal of land area from cultivation led to several benefits including carbon (C) sequestration,” the scientists write in the Abstract to their paper.
To put things into perspective, it must be said that this amount of carbon is the equivalent of 10% of Russia's yearly carbon emissions resulting from burning fossil fuels.
Specialists explain that these abandoned farming lands now function as “carbon sinks” due to the fact that wild vegetation has grown on nearly all of them.
“Everything like this makes a difference. Ten per cent is quite a bit considering most nations are only committed to 5 per cent reduction targets.”
“So by doing absolutely nothing – by having depressed their economy – they’ve achieved quite a bit,” Jonathan Sanderman, a specialist working with CSIRO Land and Water in Australia reportedly commented on these findings.
Over the following years, the lands are expected to continue sucking up carbon from the Earth's atmosphere. However, it appears that they will cease to absorb quite so much of it.
Thus, researchers estimate that, over the next 30 years, these lands will only rid the atmosphere of about 261 million tons of carbon. Provided that they remain uncultivated, that is.