A study published in Science quietly reorders the logic of conservation: the most powerful thing humanity can do for tropical forests may not be to rebuild what has been lost, but to defend what still stands. Researchers found that protecting intact primary forests delivers substantially greater returns — in carbon stored and species preserved — per dollar spent than restoration efforts, challenging a decade of momentum behind tree-planting and recovery projects. The finding does not dismiss restoration, but it places prevention above redemption in the hierarchy of environmental investment, an