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Peatlands cover only about 3 percent of the world's land, yet hold roughly twice as much carbon as all its forests. They form as partly rotted plants pile up in waterlogged ground over thousands of years.

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Peat is the dark, spongy material that builds up where waterlogged, oxygen-poor ground slows the decay of dead plants almost to a stop; mosses, especially sphagnum, are often its main source. It grows very slowly, around a millimetre a year, so a few metres of peat can hold thousands of years of history. Peatlands range from the bogs of Ireland and Scotland to vast areas of Siberia and Canada, and to tropical peat swamps in Indonesia and the Congo Basin. When they are drained for farming or forestry, or catch fire, carbon that took millennia to build up can escape within years. That is why rewetting drained peatlands is now part of many countries' climate plans.

Türkçe oku
Turbalıklar karaların yalnızca yüzde 3 kadarını kaplar, ama dünyadaki bütün ormanların yaklaşık iki katı karbon saklar. Bu sulak alanlar, yarı çürümüş bitkilerin binlerce yıl boyunca üst üste birikmesiyle oluşur.

Turba, suya doymuş ve oksijeni az topraklarda ölü bitkilerin çürümesi neredeyse durduğunda biriken koyu renkli, süngerimsi bir maddedir; çoğunlukla yosunlardan, özellikle de turba yosunundan oluşur. Çok yavaş büyür, yılda yaklaşık bir milimetre; bu yüzden birkaç metrelik bir turba katmanı binlerce yılın izini taşıyabilir. Turbalıklar İrlanda ve İskoçya'nın bataklıklarından Sibirya ve Kanada'nın uçsuz bucaksız düzlüklerine, Endonezya ile Kongo Havzası'nın tropik turba bataklıklarına kadar uzanır. Tarım ya da ormancılık için kurutulduklarında veya yandıklarında, binlerce yılda biriken karbon birkaç yıl içinde havaya karışabilir. Bu yüzden kurutulmuş turbalıkları yeniden sulamak, bugün pek çok ülkenin iklim planlarında yer alıyor.

Sources and further reading

Background reading: Peatland
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