Large animal restoration and carbon storage across climate-relevant timescales.

Restoring large animals like elephants and whales has variable and delayed impacts on carbon storage, making their climate mitigation potential uncertain and high-risk.

• Why it matters: Understanding how large animals influence carbon cycles is crucial for evaluating their role as reliable climate solutions, especially given the risks of overestimating their mitigation capacity.
• What they did: The review synthesizes evidence from studies on elephants and whales, highlighting six lessons about their variable impacts, timeframes, conservation priorities, policy caution, communication, and monitoring needs.
• The result: Conservation and restoration efforts may support long-term climate recovery and ecological resilience, but require cautious management, transparent communication, and robust validation to realize their true carbon benefits.