65 its use of technology to track peatlands, including the use of drones, aerial imagery, and lidar data. “We’re determining what’s going on in each area based on the data we have available,” said Meg Southee, lead geospatial data analyst at WCS Canada. “We’re using remotely sensed data, and we’re modeling based on that.” A Conservation Journey Canada still has a long way to go to protect the vulnerable forests and peatlands of the boreal region. “I’m currently looking at oil sands expansion in northern Alberta and a fen [a type of peatland] that’s taken close to 8,000 years to develop and could be destroyed in an instant,” Harris said. “Some restoration would be possible with a lot of work, but you can’t get back these landscapes that are thousands of years old.” In WCS Canada’s 2023 policy brief on protecting northern peatlands, GIS-driven opportunities for conservation action are described, including Environment developing a complete inventory of current peatlands and potential dangers. This effort to enhance the mapping and monitoring would include tracking relevant industrial activity to develop a full picture of what’s happening to the peatlands and where. With the rampant wildfires in summer 2023, Canada’s vulnerability to climate change is at the forefront. WCS Canada is working with global partners to get peatland conservation on the global climate action agenda to free up funds to tackle this important challenge. “The United Nations Environment Programme has been working to bring all the major peatland countries together,” Harris said. “Peatlands only cover about 3 percent of earth’s land surface, but they store nearly 30 percent of the total soil carbon. It’s a very small area relative to forests, but they store more carbon than all the world’s forests combined.” Canada is home to the world’s largest concentration of peatlands. Burned peatlands in northern Alberta. Courtesy of Lorna Harris.
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