Earthquake effects are often thought of in terms of the human impact, be that fatalities or destruction to homes and infrastructure. However, the environmental toll can also be damaging, and new research, published in Nature Geoscience, suggests the forest recovery may take even longer than rebuilding an urban zone's infrastructure, on the scale of decades. For example, after the 1950 Zayu-Medog, Tibet, earthquake it took 45 years for the forests to fully recover.