Cape Town – The power of the planet’s most effective carbon sinks - wetlands - can and must be better harnessed in national and global efforts to curb greenhouse gas emissions, says the Ramsar Convention on Wetlands as it marks World Wetlands Day tomorrow.
Wetlands such as peatlands and marshes, as well as coastal and marine areas like estuaries, lagoons, mangroves and coral reefs, are essential to regulating the global climate along with forests and oceans.
Peatlands, which cover only 3% of the planet’s land surface, store 30% of land-based carbon.
This is twice as much as all the world’s forests combined, according to the Ramsar Convention’s Global Wetland Outlook report.
Coastal and marine wetlands, including salt marshes, mangroves and seagrass beds, are similarly critical carbon storage grounds.
But wetlands are being lost three times faster than forests.
About 35% of the world’s wetlands disappeared between 1970 and 2015 due to changes in land use, urban growth, infrastructure development, increased agriculture and water diversion from wetlands.
“We are not powerless to tackle climate change in the little time we have,” said convention secretary-general Martha Rojas Urrego.
“The solutions are staring us in the face and wetlands are among them.
‘‘But the world has to fully grasp wetlands’ relationship to climate change. We must start by ending the destruction and degradation of wetlands and restoring lost ones.”
According to the convention, wetland loss turns a natural carbon sink into a source of emissions that adds to global warming.
Annual emissions of carbon dioxide, the most significant greenhouse gas, grew by about 80% between 1970 and 2004.
Currently, CO² emissions from drained or burned peatlands amount to 10% of all annual fossil fuel emissions.
Wetlands are not only critical to carbon storage, but also instrumental in mitigating, adapting to and building resilience to the impact of natural disasters.
Coastal wetlands, including mangroves and coral reefs, absorb the shock and reduce the impact of storm surges and tsunamis on coastal communities.Inland wetlands are a natural sponge, absorbing rain, reducing flooding and delaying the onset of drought by storing excess water.
Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden’s intensive restoration of the Nordic-Baltic peatlands is part of their efforts to regulate climate change. The draining of 45% of these peatlands is responsible for almost 25% of the region’s annual CO² emissions.
In Asia, the storm protection benefits of mangroves in southern Thailand have been valued at $10821 (R146550) a hectare.