Peat Lands Are Global Powerhouses for Carbon Storage

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The amount of carbon stored in peat lands on a meter square basis is often ten times, 15 times higher than that same area of land in a forest or in an agricultural setting. These are true hot spots when it comes to protecting carbon in soils and keeping that carbon out of the atmosphere. Peatlands around the world actually contain more carbon than all the worlds of vegetation combined.

A few years back, 99pi producer Emmett FitzGerald brought us a beautiful story about peat bogs. Peat is essential for biodiversity and for the climate – it is really, really good at storing carbon. But like a lot of things we cover on the show, peat often goes unnoticed, in part because it is literally out of sight underground. We’ve noticed peat and carbon sequestration more and more in the news lately. Journalists have been brilliantly covering stories about the tree planting movement, private ownership of Scotland’s bogs, and the threat to peat in the Congo Basin. Couple that with more extreme weather happening in more places, we thought it would be a good idea to repeat this story.

For the Love of Peat