Climate change, deforestation, and habitat loss are promoting increasingly uniform forests, where fast-growing tree species displace native trees. This reduces biodiversity, makes trees less resilient to disease, and weakens forests’ ability to store CO₂. This is shown by a comprehensive international study.

Desertification is accelerating across Europe’s drylands under climate change, reducing biodiversity, ecosystem services, and rural livelihoods. A new eLTER policy brief shows that functional restoration — restoring key ecosystem functions such as water regulation and soil stability — can reverse degradation even where full ecological recovery is no longer possible. Long-term research demonstrates that rebuilding water-retaining structures restores ecosystem resilience and services. The approach supports major EU and global policy frameworks and offers a scalable solution for climate-resilient land management.

The risks of climate change to human wellbeing are serious. Appropriate mitigation and adaptation require structural changes that are only likely to occur as a result of collective climate action. Danielle Goldwert, Madalina Vlasceanu, and colleagues explored what causes people to take collective climate action in a megastudy capable of directly comparing 17 behavioral interventions. 

New research indicates that restoration of peatlands can result in climate mitigation within just a few decades. 

Plant ecologist and lecturer Dr Teemu Tahvanainen at the University of Eastern Finland compiled available data and earlier results from drained and restored peatlands to inform a modelling study on climate mitigation potential of restoration. The results indicate that peatland restoration can contribute to between 2 and 6 CO₂-equivalent tons per hectare of annual climate mitigation, in a one-hundred-year assessment perspective. The implication is that restoration of weakly productive forestry-drained peatlands could make a pivotal contribution to the land-use sector emission scenarios in Finland.

An Osaka Metropolitan University-led research team analyzed residential energy consumption in ten cities across Japan from north to south and confirmed that significant energy savings can be achieved through enhanced insulation and innovative window design.