A new study uncovers the ruinous consequences, to plant and animal species, of our increasingly fragmented forests.
Can a forest that exists only in the spaces between roads and patches cleared for human settlement and agricultural development truly be called a forest?
Not so much, say researchers studying the growing, global problem of forest fragmentation. And the “persistent, deleterious and often unpredicted” consequences of human activity, finds a new study conducted by a team off 24 international scientists, and funded by the National Science Foundation, may be ruinous for plant and animal life.
“There are really only two big patches of intact forest left on Earth — the Amazon and the Congo — and they shine out like eyes from the center of the map,” lead author Nick Haddad, a professor at North Carolina State University, told the New Yorker.