The peat bog: a carbon well

The need to protect peat bogs is a recent revelation. These fragile environments play an important role in maintaining water quality and in naturally combatting the effects of drought and climate change. Plants absorb carbon dioxide (CO2) from the air by photosynthesis to form their tissue: leaves, trunk, stems, etc. When they die, they are decomposed by microorganisms in the ground and return the carbon into the air. But in a peat bog, the presence of water prevents decomposing organisms from working, which traps the carbon in the peat. Peat bogs only represent 3% of the surface of emerged land, but they store 30% of the Earth soils’ carbon!