This article has been reviewed according to Science X's editorial process and policies. Editors have highlighted the following attributes while ensuring the content's credibility: Open ecosystems—nonforested landscapes such as grasslands, shrublands and savannas—can store vast amounts of carbon while supporting water supply, biodiversity and other ecosystem services. Yet the potential of open ecosystems to serve as natural climate solutions remains ignored by policies that privilege forests.
So reports a team of researchers in a policy brief published today in PLANTS, PEOPLE, PLANET. "All of the standards and methods for carbon markets are based on forested areas, so there is no way right now to include grasslands, savannas and other open ecosystems," said lead author Franciele Peixoto, an environmental analyst for the state of Goias in Brazil. "Open ecosystems are under threat and continue to be neglected by climate policies that focus exclusively on forests and trees." Peixoto and the paper's co-authors—including Amy Zanne, an ecologist at Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies—hope their policy brief will raise awareness about why these ecosystems are important and guide the creation of policies and programs that ensure their inclusion in climate finance mechanisms.
The paper's authors have years of research and outreach experience in Brazil's Cerrado, the most biodiverse savanna in the world, home to more than 1,000 different kinds of animals and more than 10,000 plant species. "There are so many interesting plants there, like 'princess-earring grass' (capim-brinco-de-princesa in Portuguese), which has fruits that dangle like pendants. They are a beautiful golden color when the sunlight hits them," said Zanne.
"The Cerrado is a gorgeous place that provides many important ecosystem services." One of those services, as research from Zanne and other co-authors on the policy brief has demonstrated, is as a carbon storage powerhouse, with soils that can store six times as much carbon per hectare as the vegetation in the Amazon rainforest. "However," Zanne added, "whereas trees in the Amazon can grow back in decades to centuries, the carbon in some of the Cerrado soil has been there for as long as 20,000 years and cannot be replaced so quickly." In addition, the Cerrado serves as the headwaters for two-thirds of Brazil's major waterways, including the Amazon River. "People tend to think of forests as being important for the water supply, but actually, open ecosystems can be as important or even more important," said co-lead author Natashi Pilon, a plant ecologist at the State University of Campinas (UNICAMP) in Brazil.
"In open ecosystems, the plants take up less water, so more water infiltrates into the soil and replenishes groundwater. It is this water that supplies the Cerrado and other ecosystems like the Amazon in the region. It is important that society and the government understand how important the Cerrado is for Brazil's water security." These underappreciated ecosystem services are not unique to the Cerrado.
Other open ecosystems around the world bring similar benefits to people and the environment, while remaining largely neglected and misunderstood. The new paper grew out of a policy brief that the authors presented at COP30, the 2025 climate conference in Brazil. They drafted the brief because "nobody was talking about open ecosystems and the importance of these areas for carbon storage," said Peixoto.
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