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Protect and restore threatened peatlands, one of the most ecologically diverse and carbon-rich ecosystems on the planet.
Although peatlands comprise only 3 percent of the earth’s land, they make up half of the world’s wetlands and store twice as much carbon as forests. Peatlands occur on every continent, including Antarctica, and people have gathered food, timber, and medicine from them for centuries. They provide essential flood protection and water filtration services for communities. However, they are under severe pressure from industrial activities and the effects of climate change. Many peatlands have been drained for agriculture and development, and others are drying out due to prolonged drought and rising temperatures, causing out-of-control fires. They could release large amounts of greenhouse gases as they further deteriorate and burn, changing from a carbon sink to a carbon source. Peatlands need to be protected, restored, and sustainably managed on a high-priority basis, especially in the tropics.
Canada is home to a quarter of global peatlands, which are a crucial Canadian carbon sink. Peatlands cover 12% of our land area, and are globally important as one of our planet’s largest carbon stores. The deep peat of Ontario’s Hudson Bay Lowlands has developed over thousands of years and is the second largest peatlands complex in the world (over 300,000 sq. km), which is now threatened by mining. Other pressures include agricultural land use and extraction for horticulture and export. Our horticultural peat extraction industry has about the same annual emissions as five gas-fired power plants.
Learn why peatlands are critically important and what threatens them. Peat is partially decayed vegetation found in a water-soaked and oxygen-deprived environment. Types of peatlands include mires, fens, bogs, pocosins, muskeg, moors, and peat swamp forests. Peat can be as much as sixty feet thick and preserve up to 3,000 metric tons of carbon per hectare, making them an important carbon sink. Peatlands are refuges for rare and endangered plants and animals, such as sundews, caribou, bonobos, flying foxes, and orangutans, and billions of migratory birds. Indigenous people use peatlands for fishing, hunting, fiber, fruit, timber, and medicine. Indigenous knowledge and care are essential to the protection of peatlands from boreal regions to the tropics.
In Northern Ontario, proposed mining in the Ring of Fire could destroy important peatlands. Globally, threats to peatlands include draining for agriculture, especially for palm oil; extracting peat for horticulture or fuel; and oil drilling or mining.
The oldest tropical peatlands have been storing carbon for as long as 47,000 years. In Europe, draining peatlands began in Roman times. In the tropics, humans began to transform peatlands two hundred years ago. In Canada, peatlands developed since the last glaciation, about 10,000 years ago.
Peatlands remain so little understood that the largest peatland in the tropics, the Cuvette Central of the Congo, was only discovered in 2017. We are still discovering the wildlife species they contain. Peatlands in Canada are being mapped to understand our carbon landscape.
Degraded peatlands that have been converted to palm oil plantations are a large source of greenhouse gas emissions.
When peat dries out, microbial activity increases in the carbon-rich soil, resulting in a sharp increase in greenhouse gas emissions. The large peatland complex in the James Bay Lowlands could shift from a carbon sink to a source as the climate gets drier and warmer.
Indonesia leads the world in peatland emissions due to peatland drainage and fires. Russia, China, and the United States are also large emitters, along with Canada.
Of particular concern are permafrost peatlands, which could release large amounts of greenhouse gases if allowed to thaw under climate change. Our land mass in Canada is 40-50% permafrost.
Historically, peatlands have been considered wastelands to be drained and developed. Drained peat catches fire easily. “Zombie” peat fires can travel underground and last for months or years. Smoke from peatland fires in Russia in 2010 caused thousands of premature deaths, while Indonesian peatland fires in 2015 released more greenhouse gases per day than the entire U.S. economy and blanketed multiple countries with toxic smoke. The 2016 Canadian wildfire known as the Beast near Fort McMurray forced the evacuation of 88,000 people.
It takes at least a decade or two for restored peatlands to start forming peat again and become carbon sinks and vital ecosystems, as has been shown in the rewetting of the peatlands at Bois-de-Bel, Quebec.
Get to know your peatlands and speak out for them. Although they often have historical and cultural significance along with unique biodiversity, peatlands are often underappreciated.
Take a virtual journey to peatlands around the world. Take a virtual tourof Canada’s peatlands through Wildlife Conservation Society’sstory map. In Southern Ontario look at maps that show the results of settlement and wetland conversion on our carbon sinks.
Find a peatland near you.
Make consumption choices that preserve peatlands. Palm oil plantations on peat are responsible for 1.5 percent of global CO2 emissions. New plantations also damage the Sumatran elephant and orangutan habitat. Horticultural peat harvesting, largely in Canada, also causes substantial emissions.
Avoid palm oil products. Products without palm oil are certified by several organisations, including International Palm Oil Free Trademark and the Orangutan Alliance. Palm oil goes under many different names in half of the packaged products we use daily, everything from pizza to snacks to chocolate to shampoo to cleaning products. Check Ethical Consumer for a comprehensive list of ingredient names to look for. And sign this petition to get big brands to stop using dirty palm oil in the products we consume. See the Palm Oil Nexus page for more ideas.
Consider products made using illipe nuts. Illipe nut comes from trees that grow in peatlands and is one of the most promising sustainable crops in Indonesian peatlands. Illipe butter can be used in chocolate, hair products and cosmetics. It can provide income for local and Indigenous communities that can keep peatlands intact instead of draining them. Forestwise sells fair trade illipe butter and Lush sells cosmetics using illipe butter.
Avoid using peat in horticulture and gardens. Most horticultural peat comes from peatlands in Canada, and successful restoration of excavated sites takes years. There are many alternatives to peat, including vermiculture, inoculated biochar, wool fertilizer, composted bark, composted green waste, or your own compost. See the Compost Nexus page. For starting seeds, use a mix. Shop for peat-free products, including plants and soils, at your local garden centre and encourage them to carry peat alternatives, such as peat-free compost blends. If you’re doing a green roof, look to soil based on aggregates; for other landscaping, consider ecological references.
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