Why Fungi Could Be the Missing Piece in Climate Conservation
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📰 The quick summary: Scientists and conservationists are ramping up efforts to study, map, and protect fungi, a kingdom of life essential to plant survival, carbon storage, and ecosystem health that has long been overlooked in research and policy.
📈 One key stat: Mycorrhizal fungi sequester an estimated 13 billion tons of carbon dioxide in soil each year, equivalent to a third of the world’s annual fossil fuel emissions, making their protection critical to climate efforts.
💬 One key quote: “Every organism has a fungal component that is sustaining them,” said Giuliana Furci, mycologist and head of the Fungi Foundation. “They are the firmament of life on Earth.”
1️⃣ The big picture: Fungi make up one of the most essential yet least understood kingdoms of life on Earth, with an estimated 2.2 to 12 million species in existence but only around 155,000 documented so far. As many as 90 percent of plant species rely on symbiotic relationships with mycorrhizal fungi to absorb water and nutrients, and fungi play a central role in soil health, carbon storage, and ecosystem function. Despite this, fungi receive far less attention in conservation and policy than plants or animals, with only 10 percent of the world’s most fungi-rich hotspots falling inside protected areas. Researchers, citizen scientists, and advocacy groups are now working to close that knowledge gap and push for fungi to receive the same formal recognition as flora and fauna. A growing wave of scientific interest, public awareness, and international policy momentum is giving fungi advocates reason for optimism.
2️⃣ Why is this good news: Awareness of fungi’s critical ecological role is accelerating fast, with new mapping projects, genomic surveys, and citizen science initiatives dramatically expanding our knowledge of fungal diversity. California’s Fungal Diversity Survey alone has catalogued over 10,000 species since 2022, with more than 2,000 new to science, showing just how much remains to be discovered and protected. At the international level, 13 countries informally backed a Fungal Conservation Pledge at the COP16 Biodiversity Conference, signaling growing political will to include fungi in global conservation frameworks. New training programs are equipping mycologists with legal and policy skills, giving them a real seat at the table where biodiversity decisions get made. Better protection of fungi networks could pay enormous dividends for climate mitigation, biodiversity, food security, and even medicine, since fungi already underpin drugs, agriculture, and carbon-storing soils that sustain life across the planet.
3️⃣ What’s next: The Fungal Conservation Pledge is set for formal adoption at COP17 in the fall of 2026, which could mark a turning point in how fungi are treated under global biodiversity law. Ongoing projects like SPUN’s Underground Advocates program will continue training mycologists to influence policy, while FUNDIS and regional surveys keep expanding the global fungal database. Researchers are also working to sequence more fungal genomes and assess which species face the greatest risk, building the scientific foundation needed to guide future conservation action.
Read the full story here: Grist – Long overlooked as crucial to life, fungi start to get their due
