They also have the added bonus of re-establishing the multiple benefits arising from peat-forming ecosystems. Peatland restoration projects have proven to be cost-effective compared to other available carbon reducing technologies. The European Union LIFE funding has assisted over 260 peatland restoration projects, providing practical experience on the feasibility and techniques of peatland restoration. In Southeast Asia, the ASEAN Peatland Forests Project (APFP) is supporting the implementation of a multi-stakeholder Peatland Management Strategy to restore peatlands and reduce the rate of degradation and the risk of fire and haze. The United Kingdom, for example, is establishing a strategic peatland action plan to support the UK’s climate mitigation plans and international biodiversity targets. Global efforts can build on the work of those countries which have taken steps to reverse the decline of peatlands. This involves protecting them from degrading activities such as agricultural conversion and drainage, and restoring the waterlogged conditions required for peat formation to prevent the release of carbon stored in peat soil. Urgent action worldwide is required to protect, sustainably manage and restore peatlands. The species is now listed as Critically Endangered on The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species TM. For example, the decline of the Bornean Orangutan population by 60% within a sixty-year period is largely attributed to the loss of its peat swamp habitat. Damage to peatlands also results in biodiversity loss. They also preserve important ecological and archaeological information such as pollen records and human artefacts.ĭraining peatlands reduces the quality of drinking water due to pollution from dissolved compounds. In many parts of the world, peatlands supply food, fibre and other local products that sustain local economies.
By regulating water flows, they help minimise the risk of flooding and drought and prevent seawater intrusion. In their natural, wet state peatlands provide vital ecosystem services. This area sequesters 0.37 gigatonnes of CO 2 a year.
Worldwide, the remaining area of near natural peatland (>3 million km 2) contains more than 550 gigatonnes of carbon, representing 42% of all soil carbon and exceeds the carbon stored in all other vegetation types, including the world’s forests.
This is more than the daily emissions from the entire US economy.Īt the same time, peatlands are the largest natural terrestrial carbon store. Fires in Indonesian peat swamp forests in 2015, for example, emitted nearly 16 million tonnes of CO 2 a day. This is equivalent to 5.6% of global anthropogenic CO 2 emissions. CO 2 emissions from drained peatlands are estimated at 1.3 gigatonnes of CO 2 annually. The protection and restoration of peatlands is vital in the transition towards a low-carbon and circular economy.ĭamaged peatlands contribute about 10% of greenhouse gas emissions from the land use sector.
Peatlands are highly significant to global efforts to combat climate change, as well as wider sustainable development goals. This has released huge amounts of greenhouse gases, such as carbon dioxide (CO 2), from the carbon stored within peat soils. About 15% of the world’s peatlands – covering less than 0.4% of the global land surface – have been drained. Large amounts of carbon, fixed from the atmosphere into plant tissues through photosynthesis, are locked away in peat soils, representing a valuable global carbon store.Ī lack of awareness of the benefits of peatlands means that they have been severely overexploited and damaged as a result of actions including drainage, agricultural conversion, burning and mining for fuel, among others. New areas are still being discovered such as the world’s largest tropical peatland discovered beneath the forests of the Congo Basin in 2017. Peatland landscapes are varied – from blanket bog landscapes with open, treeless vegetation in the Flow Country of Scotland – a tentative World Heritage site – to swamp forests in Southeast Asia. Over millennia this material builds up and becomes several metres thick. In these areas, year-round waterlogged conditions slow the process of plant decomposition to such an extent that dead plants accumulate to form peat. The term ‘peatland’ refers to the peat soil and the wetland habitat growing on its surface. Peatlands are a type of wetlands that occur in almost every country on Earth, currently covering 3% of the global land surface.
0 kommentar(er)
