Long-term field measurements remain essential for understanding the carbon trajectories of tropical forests, especially in Asia.

As temperatures continue to rise, expectations of rapid carbon accumulation in recovering tropical forests may need to be reconsidered, with important implications for restoration, carbon accounting, and climate mitigation.

Forest carbon recovery is contingent on local environmental conditions, and may already be constrained by temperature.

Estimates of carbon sequestration from forest restoration often assume that recovering forests accumulate carbon rapidly. We find that recovery is neither automatic nor guaranteed.

These forests are enduring climate change, but are not the strong carbon sink that regional recovery rates would predict.

In Khe Nuoc Trong increasing maximum temperatures are associated with reduced carbon gains. And productivity has declined over time, suggesting that warming may already be constraining forest recovery.

The recovery rates we observe are significantly lower than widely used reference levels and rates reported in comparable forests.

We have monitored 24 permanent forest plots over the last eight years. Nearly two decades after logging ceased, we detect no net recovery of aboveground carbon stocks.