64 Peatlands across Canada are part of cultural landscapes of importance to many First Nations. In recognition of this essential connection, there’s a push to expand Indigenous Protected and Conserved Areas (IPCAs) across Canada’s northern peatlands. Peatland destruction causes the loss of carbon and takes away the future carbon-absorbing capacity. It turns the world’s best carbon sink into a carbon source. And peatlands can’t rebound like forests. We can’t re-create peatlands. You can restore them, but you often get something completely different, and you can’t recover the lost carbon. Peatlands have taken thousands of years to absorb all that carbon and build it up. Even if you give it 10, 20, 30 years, that’s nothing in the lifetime of a peatland. —Lorna Harris, director of the Forests, Peatlands, and Climate Change Program at WCS Canada Canada’s peatlands can keep that carbon stored for many thousands of years. That’s much longer than other carbon sinks, such as rain forests, which can release carbon relatively quickly— over decades and centuries. Monitoring Changes across Vast Wilderness WCS Canada’s goal is to work with partners in the Hudson Bay Lowlands to track changes as they happen, including mining activities, permafrost thaw, and wildfire damage. The data collection will give a clearer idea of what’s happening across Canada’s peatlands, an area too vast for achieving comprehensive ground truth. Building this knowledge is a challenge; the areas are distant and secluded. “There aren’t research stations,” Harris said. “The only settlement is small communities, hunting camps, mining camps.” Even maintaining a charged battery for a computer, tablet, or mobile phone is nearly impossible. “It’s a very difficult place to work,” Harris said. “It’s swarming with bugs most of the time, blackflies and mosquitoes, so we’re all in the peat bog with our bug jackets, sealing up any gaps so they can’t get through.” The expense of reaching these remote regions is high. The annual cost of using a helicopter to cover even a small lowland area starts at $60,000. “That makes it very challenging to get baseline data, do the monitoring, and get back,” Harris said. WCS Canada is working with partners to set up remote monitoring, using sensors and satellites to learn more about peatlands across Canada and make the most of the organization’s limited budget. WCS Canada plans to expand This map by WCS Canada shows established Indigenous Protected and Conserved Areas (IPCAs) across Canada as well as potential ones.
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