GoKawiilTropical forests are global biodiversity hotspots. They are rapidly lost owing to deforestation but have the ability to regrow naturally once agricultural lands are abandoned. Writing in Nature, Metz et al.1 show that tropical forest ecosystems can recover surprisingly fast. The authors report that after 30 years of recovery from deforestation, a wide range of wildlife reaches 90% of the abundance and biodiversity levels present in neighbouring old-growth forests, and 75% of the species composition (the kinds and relative abundances of species present) of those forests. Mobile animals and insects are better able to resist land-use change and recover faster than trees, so can aid tree recovery through pollination and seed dispersal. Regrowing secondary tropical forest therefore has enormous potential to reverse biodiversity losses and scale up forest-restoration work.
doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-026-00811-6
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Competing Interests The authors declare no competing interests.
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