Forests as Rainmakers

A Mongabay interview with Anastassia Makarieva

Nicholas Reynard/National Geographic

I was recently tipped off to a fascinating interview on the Mongabay podcast, in which cohosts Rachel Donald and Mike DiGirolamo interview Russian theoretical Physicist Anastassia Makarieva about the biotic pump theory. If you haven’t heard of it, the theory postulates that forests generate circulations that draw moist, coastal air across thousand of kilometers deep into their interiors, maintaining water cycles that are crucial to their regions and climate.

We are referring to the great remaining tracts of primary forest—the northern Boreal, the Amazon, the Congo and the rainforests of South Asia. All are being relentlessly logged, bringing immediacy to the matter, for if Makarieva is right, and many scientists believe she is, Earth’s remaining primeval forests are in greater danger than we realize.

I’ll be writing more about this as I shift my attention to forests. In the meantime, you can hear the interview for yourself here.

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