Peat
Peat drainage

Large areas of organic wetland (peat) soils are currently drained for agriculture, forestry, and peat extraction (i.e. through canals). This process is taking place all over the world. This not only destroys the habitat of many species but also heavily fuels climate change. As a result of peat drainage, the organic carbon – which built over thousands of years and is normally underwater – is suddenly exposed to the air. It decomposes and turns into carbon dioxide (CO), which is released into the atmosphere. The global CO emissions from drained peatlands have increased from 1,058 Mton in 1990 to 1,298 Mton in 2008 (a 20% increase). This increase has particularly taken place in developing countries, of which Indonesia, Malaysia, and Papua New Guinea are the fastest-growing top emitters. This estimate excludes emissions from peat fires (conservative estimates amount to at least 4,000 Mton/ CO -eq./yr for south-east Asia). With 174 Mton/ CO -eq./yr, the EU is after Indonesia (500 Mton) and before Russia (161 Mton), the world's second-largest emitter of drainage-related peatland CO (excl. extracted peat and fires). Total CO emissions from the worldwide 500,000 km of degraded peatland may exceed 2.0 Gtons (including emissions from peat fires), which is almost 6% of all global carbon emissions.
detectable_format:json_format, language:response_language[Latin]