Bogs, Peatlands, Swamps And the Ramsar Convention

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Hi, I'm Christina.

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I'm from Prague.

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Hi, I'm Jen, and I'm from Canada.

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Hi, I'm Ola Bandji, and I'm from Nigeria.

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Hello, I'm Liki, and I live in Paris.

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Hi, I'm Brian, and I'm from New York.

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Welcome to Carbon Sessions, a podcast with

Carbon Conversations for every day, with

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everyone, from everywhere in the world.

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In our conversations, we share ideas.

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So don't be shy and join our carbon

sessions because it's not too late.

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Hi, I'm Olabunji.

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I'm Jen.

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This weekend is the Cultural

Heritage Weekend in France.

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That means that the exceptional places

that are part of the making of the

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French heritage, French culture,

are open to the public or shown in a

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different way or from a different angle.

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And this could be...

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castles or museums or factories

or government buildings.

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But I have decided that for this time,

for this year, because we've been

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talking a lot on the carbon sessions

about connecting with nature, , to

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visit a place that uphold of the natural

cultural heritage in front, which is Bugs.

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I'm going to visit a bug tomorrow, you

know, and that's why I suggested this

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topic for tonight, which is wetlands,

bogs, peatlands, swamps, because they

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are very, very important in climate

change conversation in both in climate

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mitigation and also in adaptation.

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Yeah, because, um, I guess that,

because you all have the carbon

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almanac, you know, by now that.

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, uh, that wetlands play a very crucial

role in climate change, right?

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Yeah.

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I can say that we have a really big peat

bog near us, , called Burns Bog, and

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it's the largest, uh, raised peat bog and

the largest undeveloped urban landmass

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on the West Coast of the Americas.

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Wow.

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Um, once upon a time, it was.

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almost 5, 000 hectares.

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It was, I think, 4, 900 hectares

before it got developed.

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So what's left now is about 3, 500

hectares or 8, 600 acres and it has

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It's, uh, 300 plant and animal species

and 175 bird species and a lot of those

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are endangered, um, endangered species.

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And then it's also part of what's

called the Pacific Flyway, which is

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where, , the migratory birds stop.

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, so it's a pretty cool place.

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We had, uh, a huge fire.

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of the bog.

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Uh, well, it's had a few fires.

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, but the latest one was in, , 2016.

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And so that's a bit scary

because peat will burn for days.

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, but it's a beautiful place to, to walk.

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Uh, and do you know what

happened when pits, uh, burn?

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Um, well, it, it goes

quite far into the air.

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When Pete goes on fire and then it puts

out a lot of ash and it grows quickly.

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It grew to about 190 acres, the fire.

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Wow.

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Um, but they managed to put it

out and, uh, using, you know, air

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tankers and helicopters and stuff.

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, but it's a beautiful place.

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It's a wetland.

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And, um, it's got something called

sphagnum moss in it, which, um,

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holds 30 times its weight in

water, which is kind of cool.

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So there's all sorts of information

when you walk through Bernsbog,

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, about the animals and the birds

and the, uh, the life that's there.

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So it's a cool place.

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Yes.

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Wow.

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, this is great.

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And it's sad to see that the fires are...

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causing a huge destruction on that end.

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I started looking at this, I found

some really interesting facts, part

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of which is pitlands are the largest

natural terrestrial carbon store.

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And so they store more carbon than any

other thing that we can think about modern

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trees and modern whatever intervention

there is and they take just about a

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little bit of about three percent of the

global land surface and so for the size

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of peat lands they sure do a lot of work

to store carbon and then Just like you

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said, Jen, like seeing even that go away

is a huge cause for concern, I think.

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Yeah.

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The thing about the, um, this particular

place that I've been to is , it did

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recover, you know, the fire, um, It's

incredible how these things recover after,

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after things as drastic as a forest fire.

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This, this particular one was,

um, was formed 10, 000 years

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ago at the end of the Ice Age.

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It's pretty neat.

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Wow.

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Yeah, and, uh, , it'll be around

long after we are, I think,

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actually, when I was researching for

this conversation, I found out that

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wetlands covered, I mean, a big part of,

of Europe was covered , with wetlands.

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I don't know about your, uh, about, , the

America or, uh, , Africa, but Europe.

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Big part of Europe was COPD with wetlands,

and I found some data that says that

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some regions cop with like 20 or 30% of

wetlands like, you know, particularly,

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uh, the Netherlands or , the, the

poor river in Italy or the DanUp delta

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in Romania has a lot of wetlands,

but uh, has been destroyed since.

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And that's sad because

we really need wetlands.

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But sorry, was it destroyed

by people developing or why?

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Why?

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Well, because pit, um, I don't know

about pitland, but wetlands in general

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is very good for agriculture because

it has very, very good soil because

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it, it does absorb a lot of carbon.

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So the soil, when you grow,

when you, you transform the

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wetlands into agricultural land.

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, it's very fertile type of soil.

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So there's this.

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There's also urbanization, because,

uh, you know, when you dry the pitland,

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you can build towns and buildings.

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And, um, there's also pit

extraction, because pit extraction

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can be used as fertilizers.

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So that's, that's some of

the reasons that Right.

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, the wetlands have diminished in Europe.

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Do you have bogs and, and that where

you are albani, have you got Um, yeah.

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Um, we have more swamps.

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Around here then?

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Um, yeah, we, we definitely

have more swamps.

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What's the difference

between swamps and barks?

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I guess it's because , different type

of wetlands have different ecosystem

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because they are form different

ways and, uh, different sort of,

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of water and uh, also plants and

then creates different ecosystem.

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That's why I think there

are different terminology.

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Yeah, what do we do to And

this is, this is two sides.

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So one side is the, the effect.

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And the effect is, I think we've talked

a bit about the cost, which would be

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drainage, um, agriculture, burning, mining

for fuel and all the activities that cost

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, the bogs and the wetlands to go away.

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But 1.

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9 gigatons Carbon annually is drained

from the peat lands, which is very

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alarming considering the fact that

that's, that's probably like 5 percent

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give or take of global anthropogenic

greenhouse gas emissions, which

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would be the greenhouse gas emissions

that come from human activity.

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And so it's like every year, 5 percent

of that is lost, you know, and that's

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the effect of all the activities that.

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that are being done.

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So I guess, how do we restore?

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Are there, like, very effective

methods that we can consider

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for restoring the peatlands and

perhaps some solution to, to this?

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Because if the peatlands are,

like we said, about 3 percent

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of the entire landscape, then we

can't afford to let them go away.

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So yeah, I'm just thinking, are

there things that we can do?

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I know prevention for sure is the best

option, but in cases where we, we've lost

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the pitlands and the bogs and the rest

of them, what can we do to get them back?

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Well, actually I visited another

bog this summer in Latvia, and I

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found out that there's a treaty,

there's an that protects pitlands.

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And this treaty is called

the Ramsar Convention.

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Ramsar, R A M S A R Convention.

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And it is an international treaty.

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And it promotes the conservation and

sustainable use of wetlands globally.

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Actually a lot of countries are of

this treaty, , um, there are 170

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countries that have joined., and,

um, and it covers 2, 400 wetlands.

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Then those are called Ramsar,

Ramsar sites, the Ramsar site.

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Yeah.

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And that means that these sites

have an international importance and

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are prioritized for conservation.

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And so that was, that was when

I was in Latvia, this place

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was, , um, part of Natural Park.

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They promote first the awareness of it,

that, the importance of, of the bark, but

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also they also promote the, uh, , the,

the bird washing and, , they conserv some

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of of the natural habitat of the, of

the animals, of the small creatures.

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It's not very well known \ . Apparently,

\ , you've been to bogs and swamps and all

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this kind of places, but you, you have

certainly not heard of Ramsar Treaty.

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And , actually is a

treaty that does exist.

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The bog I was talking about, Burns

Bog, is listed under the, uh, what's

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called Fraser River Delta Ramsar site.

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And as it's a wetland of international

significance, so it, it's part

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of what you're talking about.

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Leaky and it's because of the, um,

the feeding and the roosting for all

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the migratory and wintering fowl, uh,

waterfowl and about a million shorebirds.

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So, plus all the, the endangered

and vulnerable species.

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So it's, it's part of the, uh.

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I don't know if it's a treaty or what it,

uh, what it is, the Ramsar Convention,

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they call it, on wetlands, , and bogs.

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I don't know what Ramsar stands for.

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Does anybody?

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Ramsar, Ramsar is, um, is a city in...

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Oh, I see.

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It's named after the city

of Ramsar in Iran, where the

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convention was signed in 1971.

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There you go.

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I'm learning something.

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That's cool.

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It's cool.

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I thought it was an acronym, but

no, it's the name of a city in Iran.

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Yeah, I thought so too.

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I thought it was an acronym.

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So what can we do?

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I think it goes back to

development, generally speaking.

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So we have to find a way to move

forward without destroying what

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exists, and rather making it better.

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The reason being that a lot of what is

responsible for climate change today,

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Is moving forward, so to say, and so

we can't say humanity should pause or

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not move forward, but we need to find a

way to move forward without destroying

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what exists or what is keeping us or

what is keeping the balance, so to say.

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And I think that's an important

part of, that's an important

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conversation that has to be going

on, not just in the climate space.

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And I, and I hope it is anyway,

but in spaces where inventions,

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development technologies and

things are being developed.

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And so if we consider the benefit of a

technology to humanity, we should also

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consider the benefit of that technology

to the ecosystem at the same time and find

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a way to balance things so that, and so

that we can safely innovate and safely

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progress and safely advance as a race.

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And so I was just thinking about that

before I got lost in a little bit of

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reading about the the strange history

of bogs and that that apparently,

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um, things don't decompose in a bog.

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And so they've found ancient humans

buried in bogs in places like Denmark.

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And So they've found clothing and...

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And mummify, mummify.

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This is gross.

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And that's kind of cool.

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This is gross.

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No, I just found, I looked, I was

looking it up and it said , bog bodies.

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But you know, they're, they're

interesting places because, um,

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they're so different than other places.

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On Earth, you know, it's just its

whole thing, its whole own thing.

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Yeah, for sure.

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That's the whole point of a bug,

because , things don't decompose.

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That's why they keep it for so long.

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Yeah.

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It's fascinating.

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Uh, I encourage people who are

listening to, you know, get

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intrigued and look up more about

bogs and peat and, uh, swamps too.

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And Ramsar as well.

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That's right.

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And Ramsar.

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Yeah.

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Which now we know as a name.

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Let us know if you have a bog near

you and let us know if you visited it

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and what kinds of creatures are in it,

because they'll be different depending

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on where you are in the world, right?

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What animals and creatures, we

have a lot of owls and coyotes and

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birds, um, Olobanji, what would you

have in your swamps, do you think?

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What kind of creatures?

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Yeah, crocodiles for sure.

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I think I've seen those.

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I haven't seen any other one, but I know

about crocodiles because I've seen them.

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Oh!

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Cool.

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Yeah.

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Okay.

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I've seen birds in mine.

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Birds and buffalos.

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Yes.

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Birds in yours.

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Yeah.

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Buffalos?

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Yeah.

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Cool.

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And horses as well.

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So diverse.

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Horses.

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Yeah.

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In Camargue.

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That's great.

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So, so what kind of, uh, bog animals

do you have near you and let us know

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because it'd be so fun to find out.

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Thanks, Leakey.

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Thank you, Leakey.

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Thanks, Jane.

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You've been listening to Carbon

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