Prof. Alex Smith, of the Department of Integrative Biology, spoke with the BBC World Service’s Newsday program about what can be done to restore rainforests destroyed by fire, such as the fires destroying the Amazonia and Indonesia.

Smith described research he and his team conducted in which they introduced pulped-out orange peelings to the soil to restore insect and microbial biodiversity in the tropical forests of Costa Rica. He noted the project succeeded in increasing the diversity and the biomass of trees in the area.

Smith said forests have “an ecological memory” and want to re-form themselves  and restore their biodiversity, but he said it takes lots of time and a good amount of political will to make that happen.

Smith is a biologist whose research seeks to understand the distribution of diverse species of insects and amphibians across major ecological gradients in tropical and temperate environments.