Soil

How the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) could bring a recently-discovered peatland into its REDD process By Bill Hinchberger, originally posted on Forests News Congo Basin – The Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) has long been known for the biodiversity and carbon storage capacity of its vast forests. Now, there is a need to explore the […]

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A conversation with Gerald Schmilewski, President of the International Peatland Society (IPS), during the Global Landscapes Forum thematic event Peatlands Matter in Jakarta, Indonesia, on May 18, 2017.

By Tim Christophersen, originally posted at the UN-REDD Programme The lack of knowledge on peatlands must be addressed urgently. An often neglected ecosystem, and significant contributor to climate change, is peat. When it burns or dries up huge amounts of CO2 are released. The UK Met Office says carbon dioxide levels have seen a surge in recent months as […]

By Fred Pearce, Originally posted on the CGIAR’s Program on Water, Land and Ecosystems’ Thrive blog What do you do with a radioactive landscape? Leaving aside the devastation left in the Marshall Islands, eastern Kazakhstan and elsewhere by atmospheric bomb tests in the 1950s, the prime cases today are the exclusion zones created around Chernobyl in 1986 […]

Originally posted at the UN-REDD Programme Indonesia’s president Joko Widodo announced the other week a landmark moratorium banning all peat-damaging activities. At the Climate COP in Marrakech a new UN Environment-led global initiative, the Global Peatlands Initiative, was launched. Why that sudden focus on protecting peatlands, an ecosystem so far not on the radar of […]