Africa’s forests are getting younger, and this shift is quietly unsettling the continent’s carbon balance. Across the tropics and savannahs, older, carbon-rich woodlands are thinning out, replaced by fast-growing but less stable stands.

Scientists are cautioning that while younger forests can pull carbon from the atmosphere quickly, they store far less than the giants they replace, creating a net loss that undermines the continent’s fight against climate change.

A new global study underscores that a delicate balance that incorporates protecting Africa’s remaining mature forests even as new ones are established may matter more for the planet’s future.

Scientists using high-resolution datasets have been tracking how the world’s forests are aging, how much carbon they hold, and how disturbances such as logging, fire, or disease shape their future.

They mapped global forest age and tracked biomass “stand replacement events”, moments when entire forest stands are cleared and replaced. These events created a carbon imbalance.

The research found that globally, forests stored about 430 billion tonnes of carbon aboveground at the start of the last decade. But losses from disturbance were significant, reducing that stock by roughly 8.6 billion tonnes between 2010 and 2020.

Africa contributed disproportionately to this decline, with some regions losing up to 2.4 tonnes per hectare per year, mostly due to small-scale clearing and charcoal production.

Young forests (0–20 years old) accounted for just 7 percent of carbon stocks but absorbed carbon rapidly, often over three tonnes per hectare annually.

Mature forests (40–80 years old) were the real vaults, storing nearly half of all global aboveground carbon. Old-growth forests (over 100 years old), like those in the Congo Basin, held enormous stocks but their uptake slowed, leaving them vulnerable to becoming net carbon sources when disturbed.

Inversion models showed that regions with heavy stand replacement often flipped from sinks to sources, releasing carbon instead of capturing it.

In Central Africa, uptake has already slowed by 15 percent compared to the 1990s. If current trends continue, scientists project that African forests could lose an additional five billion tonnes of carbon by 2050.

The consequences are already being felt. In the Congo Basin, which alone holds about 60 billion tonnes of carbon in trees and soils, communities can sense the shifts. Rains are less predictable, dry seasons harsher. Farmers who once trusted the forest’s rhythm now face uncertainty.

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