True. I’d hate to research an area even that big and try to be comprehensive. And they tracked a lot of different species. No doubt it was a complex project.

I just always think about what the takeaways might be. And I don’t want the takeaway to be “oh let’s log ALL the forests, since we value having a lot of species, so forget about that one frog that only grows here.” If we had even 50/50 old growth and second growth, then it wouldn’t feel so precarious.

And I hope “the lungs of the world” are able to be preserved. It seems every day there’s bad news about it.

It’s almost certainly true that at least one species can only thrive in those unlogged spaces, even if a lot of other species can thrive in the second-growth forest.

Thanks for the link! Open access FTW!!

Looks like the relevant part from the methodology is: >“in four old-growth forest 1-ha plots in the Maliau Basin Conservation Area (two plots, 4 years of data) and Danum Valley Conservation Area (two plots, 2 years of data)14,16, and one 0.36-ha mature oil palm plot”

So not very large. That’s disappointing, really. I wish they had been in miles-long tracts.

Can’t read behind the paywall.

My question is this: I thought no old growth forests were left, like, anywhere. So is the area being studied large enough to actually draw conclusions about large-scale forest management? Or is it more of a curiosity study based off of a single square acre?