
Northern Peatlands in Canada
An Enormous Carbon Storehouse
A story map by:
Why are peatlands important?
Where are peatlands?
Indigenous Peoples
Peatlands are part of the traditional territories of many Indigenous Peoples across Canada who remain deeply connected to these places as a basis for their social, community, cultural and economic values.
Biodiversity
Peatlands also play important roles in biodiversity conservation, wildlife habitat, protection of species at risk, water storage and quality, and maintenance of air quality.
Polar bears (left), caribou (centre), and red knots (right) are all species of national concern that frequent peatlands across Canada.
Carbon Cycle
Impacts to peatlands from climate change and development
We cannot ignore the carbon impacts of future development. Keeping carbon in the ground is going to be critical to control the severity of climate change.
The Road Ahead
Peatlands are an important natural climate solution
The path to net zero emissions by 2050 assumes that marine and terrestrial carbon sinks, including peatlands, will continue to remove about half the CO₂ emitted annually from fossil fuel combustion and land-use change. Ensuring peatlands continue to serve this essential function, while maintaining their existing carbon stores, requires a fundamental shift in how Boreal peatlands are assessed and managed in Canada.
We have developed a policy briefing detailing the steps that can be taken now to make this shift. Included among these actions are:
- Increase our understanding of how human activities affect carbon emissions from northern peatlands, including the impacts on future emissions of increased industrial activities that alter or remove peatlands and incorporate the cost of additional carbon emissions due to development prior to approving projects.
- Design and support financial mechanisms to reduce carbon emissions associated with peatlands.
- Support and fund Indigenous-led conservation, including land use planning and the establishment of Indigenous Protected and Conserved Areas (IPCAs) in the north to conserve and steward peatlands.
- Invest in Indigenous Guardians to help monitor and protect northern peatlands and to manage IPCAs that protect carbon storehouses.
- Invest in a national database for carbon storage and fluxes that will enable full accounting of carbon fluxes in peatlands.
- Expand peatland inclusions as part of improving Canada’s Nationally Determined Contributions to the UNFCCC and include all relevant carbon fluxes in the national inventory reporting of greenhouse sources and sinks.
- Develop a Pan-Canadian Peatlands Strategy that coordinates and creates policies and incentive schemes that recognize the need for the protection and restoration of peatlands across provinces and territories within the context of Canada's 2025 and 2030 Conservation Targets.
- Incorporate the carbon and biodiversity values of the Hudson Bay Lowlands as a world-class peatland into future planning, including the planned regional assessment for the Ring of Fire .
By protecting peatlands, we can address both climate change and biodiversity loss by maintaining areas rich in carbon and species. Protection of these unique systems is key to meeting Canada’s targets to reduce carbon emissions and conserve biodiversity.
Indigenous Guardians doing monitoring work.
We need innovative approaches to keep these areas intact and carbon rich.
Credits
This work is generously supported by:
References
Goldstein A., Turner, W.R., Spawn, S.A. Anderson-Teixeira, K.J., Cook-Patton, S., Fargione, J., Gibbs, H.K., Griscom, B., Hewson, J.H., Howard, J.F., Ledezma, J.C., Page, S., Pin Koh, L., Rockstrom, J., Sanderman, J., and Hole, D.G. (2020). Protecting irrecoverable carbon in Earth’s ecosystems. Nature Climate Change, 10, 287–295. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41558-020-0738-8
Harris, L., Richardson, K., Bona, K., Davidson, S.J., Finkelstein, S.A., Garneau, M., McLaughlinm J., Nwaishi, F., Olefeldt, D., Packalen, M., Roulet, N.T., Southee, F.M., Strack, M., Webster, K., Wilkinson, S.L., and Ray, J. (2021). The essential carbon service provided by northern peatlands. Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment. https://doi.org/10.1002/fee.2437
Turetsky, M.R, Donahue, W.F., and Benscoter, B.W. (2011). Experimental drying intensifies burning and carbon losses in a northern peatland. Nature Communications, 2, 514. https://doi.org/10.1038/ncomms1523
Notes
This story map was revised and updated on November 8, 2021. This version includes:
- updated text,
- maps of peatland extent produced using Hugelius et al. (2020) dataset version 1.0,
- references to new research from Harris et al. (2021) , and
- the link to the Northern Peatlands Policy Brief produced by Smart Prosperity Institute and WCS Canada.