Europe Was Never a Giant Dark Forest, New 20-Million-Year Study Reveals

A new paleoecology review of 23 million years suggests Europe was usually a patchwork of open woodlands, grasslands, and scrub, not a continent of dense primeval forest.

Researchers say grazing animals, beavers, and other disturbances helped keep landscapes open across much of the Miocene, Pleistocene, and Holocene.

Dense forests appear to have become widespread only relatively recently, challenging the “closed-forest” idea of Europe’s natural baseline.

The findings, published in Biological Conservation and led by Aarhus University’s Jens-Christian Svenning, could affect reforestation policy and biodiversity goals.