Stitching Together Forests Can Help Save Species, Study Finds<br />“But we wanted to take that data and figure out what we’d actually gain by putting these forests back together.”<br />In the stretch of Atlantic Forest north of Rio de Janeiro, home to the endangered golden lion tamarin, a bright orange primate, the researchers<br />identified 20 areas where corridors could be planted — small forests just six-tenths of a mile wide — to reconnect existing habitats.<br />“We’re already observing golden lion tamarins passing through, which means they’re less likely to be isolated, they can meet tamarins elsewhere,<br />and local populations are less likely to wink out,” he said.<br />“We’ve known for a while that fragmentation elevates extinction rates and<br />that these corridors can help,” said Clinton Jenkins, an ecologist at the Institute for Ecological Research in Brazil and a co-author of the study.<br />The authors make the case that such corridors would be relatively cheap, costing an estimated<br />$21 million to $49 million to reconnect fragmented forests in Brazil and Tanzania.
