Moor Atlas: climate threat from dried wetlands

The good news first: Worldwide, 88 percent of all wetlands are still largely untouched. They thus store around 600 billion metric tons of carbon on just 3 percent of land area – twice as much as is bound in the biomass of all forests, which cover a total of 27 percent of land mass. However, their loss is rapid: Every year, 500,000 hectares of wetlands are being drained, creating an enormous global climate issue. This is according to the new „Mooratlas“ presented this week by the Heinrich Böll Foundation, Friends of the Earth Germany (BUND) and the Michael Succow Foundation.