22/11/24 As UNFCCC COP29 is ending in Baku, Azerbaijan, preparations are gathering pace for the next COP – which will take place in Brazil. Scientists are already now pointing out the little-noticed but huge climate potential of the peatlands of Brazil. The country’s most carbon dense ecosystem is nearly unprotected and tremendously threatened by large scale agriculture and deforestation, a new briefing paper by the Greifswald Mire Centre and partners finds.

In Brazil there are 17,000 km² covered with peat and another 209,000 km² with peat occurring in patches. These peatlands are distributed in Amazonia, the Cerrado savanna, the coastal areas plus in mountainous areas and highlands. Clearly, the Brazilian Amazonia, e.g. the Rio Negro basin and along river valleys, is Brazil's peatland hotspot.

The United Nations Environmental Agency (UNEP) estimates their carbon stock in peatlands is 39 Gt. It also assumes 3,540 km² of organic soils currently to be under land use, causing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions of at least 18 Mt CO_2-e. Scientists suspect this number to be an understimation. Brazil's peatlands also serve as water buffer which is severly needed for the dry season and prevention of wildfires.

However, Brazil does not report carbon emissions from land use on organic soils to the UNFCCC. Greenhouse gas emissions resulting from e.g. peatland drainage, drought, peat fires, from agriculture and urban encroachment remain unaccounted for. Also, wetland protection in general is currently excluded from the most important Brazilian nature conservation law, the federal Brazilian Native Vegetation Protection (LPVN) Law (12,651, May 2012). Thus, activities with negative impacts such as cattle grazing and extraction of water for domestic purposes remain allowed in wetlands.

"Brazil’s peatlands are virtually not recognized nor protected, and seriously threatened by industrial scale agriculture, like soy and cattle production, deforestation and climate change. We urgently need to better understand and protect peatlands in Brazil.” says Felix Beer, one of the authors of the new briefing paper.

Since peatlands are spread over incredibly vast areas and peatland science is a rather young discipline in Brazil, the extent of peatlands there is subject to large uncertainties. There is a tremendous need to increase monitoring efforts, legal protection, conservation measures and to close knowledge gaps etc.. Alexandre Christofaro Silva, Professor of Forest Engineering at the Federal University of Jequitinhonha and Mucuri valley, demands: “The conservation of Brazilian peatlands is essential not only for traditional people and regional communities, but to humanity. At COP30 even in Brazil we need to have them on the agenda, and fight to stop their anthropization (fire, drainage, pasture) as we fight to stop cutting Amazonian rain forests.”

In respect to next year's climate summit, Cinthia Soto Golcher, responsible for Climate Change Advocacy at Wetlands International, states: “To reach the Paris Agreement goals on mitigation and adaptation, drained peatlands must be restored and rewetted. This cannot be achieved by only a few actors, but needs the mobilization of national and international stakeholders and resources. Hence, we view COP 30 in Brazil as a historic opportunity -and responsibility- for the international community to advance a significant and transformative chapter for peatlands in which they are seriously considered as part of the path towards a resilient 1,5C planet by 2050.”