The 'Funga' Movement: Why Science is Elevating Fungi to Save the Climate

For centuries, the natural world has been legally and culturally divided into two primary pillars: flora and fauna. Plants and animals dictate how governments draw conservation zones, how developers conduct environmental impact assessments, and how schools teach biology. But a quiet revolution in the earth sciences is pushing to rewrite that binary framework. Researchers are demanding the formal recognition of a third kingdom—"funga"—arguing that conservation is fundamentally incomplete without the organisms that literally hold ecosystems together.[4]

The urgency of this movement crystallized this week when a coalition of scientists published a direct appeal in the journal Nature, urging policymakers to stop leaving fungi out of environmental impact assessments. The researchers argue that ignoring fungal networks during land development and conservation planning is a catastrophic oversight, given their foundational role in soil health, nutrient cycling, and ecosystem resilience.[1]

The push to elevate fungi is not merely a taxonomic technicality; it is driven by staggering new evidence regarding their role in the global climate system. Recent data harmonizations have revealed that underground mycorrhizal networks are one of the largest carbon sinks on Earth. According to a landmark meta-analysis published in Current Biology, an estimated 13.12 billion tons of carbon dioxide are transferred from plants to these fungal networks every single year.[2]

To put that figure into perspective, 13.12 billion tons of CO2 is equivalent to roughly 36 percent of all global fossil fuel emissions generated annually. It exceeds the total yearly greenhouse gas output of China, the world's largest emitter. Despite this massive climate footprint, fungi currently represent a mere 0.2 percent of global conservation priorities, a disparity that the "Flora, Fauna, Funga" (3Fs) initiative is fighting to correct.[3]

The mechanism behind this massive carbon sink is a 450-million-year-old symbiotic trade agreement. Plants pull carbon dioxide from the atmosphere during photosynthesis, converting it into energy-rich sugars. However, plants cannot easily extract the nitrogen and phosphorus they need from solid rock and dense soil. Mycorrhizal fungi, which cannot photosynthesize, possess specialized acids that dissolve rock and organic matter to mine these essential minerals.

The two kingdoms meet at the root level. Plants funnel their surplus carbon sugars down into their roots and trade them to the fungi in exchange for the mined minerals. The fungi then use that carbon to build vast, microscopic webs of mycelium that stretch through the soil, effectively locking the carbon underground. In a mature forest, up to 75 percent of the total carbon is stored below ground in the soil and root systems, heavily mediated by these fungal networks.[3]

Recognizing this invisible infrastructure, major conservation organizations are beginning to change their language. The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) and the National Geographic Society have officially adopted the "funga" terminology, placing it on equal footing with flora and fauna in their educational and grant-making frameworks. The goal is to normalize the 3Fs so that protecting a forest legally requires protecting its soil biome, not just its trees.

However, mapping an invisible, subterranean kingdom presents a unique scientific challenge. Organizations like the Society for the Protection of Underground Networks (SPUN) are currently conducting global soil-sampling expeditions to sequence fungal DNA. By feeding this genetic data into artificial intelligence models, researchers are creating the first global maps of mycorrhizal biodiversity, identifying "hotspots" that are critical for global carbon sequestration.[3]

These maps are revealing that fungal networks are under severe threat. Industrial agriculture, which relies heavily on deep tilling, chemical fertilizers, and fungicides, physically shreds and starves the delicate mycelial webs. Clear-cut logging similarly devastates the networks by removing the host plants that feed them. When these networks die, the carbon they hold is released back into the atmosphere, turning a climate solution into a climate liability.[3][4]

The realization that healthy soil requires healthy fungi is also sparking commercial innovation. Startups are pioneering "fungal re-wilding" techniques for the commercial forestry sector. By inoculating the soil of timber plantations with native, highly biodiverse fungal strains that were lost to decades of industrial farming, these companies are accelerating tree growth and increasing timber yields.[3]

This commercial angle is attracting attention from climate investors, who view optimized mycorrhizal networks as a scalable biological technology. If forestry companies can prove that their fungal inoculations permanently increase the amount of carbon locked in the soil, they can generate and sell high-quality carbon removal credits to corporations looking to offset their emissions.[3][4]

Despite the optimism, climate modelers emphasize the need for transparent uncertainty. The 13.12 billion tons of carbon allocated to fungi is a gross flow, not a permanent net sink. Fungi are living organisms that breathe; a significant portion of that carbon is eventually respired back out of the soil as carbon dioxide. The exact ratio of how much carbon stays stabilized in the soil long-term versus how much is respired remains one of the most critical open questions in soil science.[2][4]

To answer these questions, advocates are pushing for systemic policy changes. At recent international biodiversity summits, nations like Chile and the United Kingdom have formally proposed integrating fungi into global conservation treaties. Chile has already set a global precedent by incorporating fungal protection into its national environmental policies, requiring developers to account for fungi before breaking ground.

The elevation of fungi from a neglected sub-category of botany to a central pillar of global climate strategy represents a profound shift in ecological thinking. By embracing the "Flora, Fauna, Funga" paradigm, scientists and policymakers are acknowledging that the Earth's resilience depends just as much on the invisible networks beneath our feet as it does on the charismatic plants and animals above ground.[4]