‘Protecting and restoring peatlands is perhaps another key “low-hanging fruit” and among the most cost-effective options for climate change mitigation,’ said Achim Steiner, executive director of the UN Environment Programme (UNEP).

Peat is decaying plant material on its way to becoming coal. When wet, it stores around ten times more carbon than other ecosystems but is often drained for agriculture or dried out by forest fires.

Peatlands cover three per cent of the world’s land area and can store carbon for thousands of years but, if exposed to air, the carbon inside combines with oxygen to form carbon dioxide.

‘Investments in conservation and restoration of peatlands can be up to 100 times more cost-effective as other carbon sequestration measures,’ said Ahmed Djoghlaf, executive secretary of the Convention on Biological Diversity.

The Bali climate talks approved a plan to reduce emissions from deforestation in developing countries, and this also covers peat-swamp forests such as those found in Malaysia and Indonesia (but not non-forested peatlands).

This should make places with peat-swamp forests ‘an extremely attractive area to start working,’ said Alex Kaat of Wetlands International. ‘Nowhere else can such enormous emissions be prevented with relatively little money.’

Peatlands are the world’s second-largest carbon stockpile – beaten only by the oceans – and are found in 180 countries.


March 2008