International News

Tropical peat forests risk turning from carbon “drains” to emitters

WASHINGTON, June 13, (APP/AFP) – Peat bogs in
tropical forests, long key outlets for greenhouse gases, could dry up due to farming and global warming, further accelerating climate change and putting more pressure on wetlands, a study out Monday found.
The vast swamplands, located largely in southeast Asia, have long
helped store atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) and put a brake on global warming.
The forested peat bogs have been under increasing threat in recent
years from clear-cutting and drainage for palm-oil plantations, according to a report released in the US Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS).
That has helped fuel climate change, which is now altering
precipitation patterns that in turn could make the wetlands dry up even faster, said Charles Harvey, a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and one of the authors of the report.
As a result, the former carbon sinks could become net emitters of CO2
and accelerate the process that they once slowed.
“There is a tremendous amount of peatland in Southeast Asia, but
almost all of it has been deforested,” said Harvey, a professor of civil and environmental engineering.
Once they have been deforested and drained, the peat lands dry out,
and the organic material they contain oxydizes, returning the carbon dioxide to the atmosphere.
Sometimes they can also catch fire and burn for long periods of time,
creating vast smoke clouds that aggravate pollution.