Research
The Greifswald Moor Centrum went on a joint expedition with Wilderness International to our protected areas. The research findings reveal the underestimated potential of Canada’s coastal moors for climate protection and biodiversity.
Hardly any other ecosystem is as mysterious, as grossly underestimated and, at the same time, as crucial to climate protection as peatlands. Although they cover just 3 per cent of the Earth’s surface, they store over 30 per cent of all soil carbon – more than all the world’s forests combined. If they are destroyed, they release enormous quantities of CO2. This would have catastrophic consequences for the future of our climate. This makes it all the more important to gain an even better understanding of how peatlands function and to protect them. This was precisely the aim of the research expedition organised by Wilderness International and the Greifswald Moor Centrum in the summer of 2025 to our protected areas on the north coast of British Columbia (Canada).
Canada is home to some of the largest peatland areas in the world, yet, of all places, almost nothing was previously known about the peatlands within Wilderness International’s protected areas. With the support of Prof. Dr Jürgen Kreyling and Hanna Martens, these gaps in our knowledge were now to be filled.
A surprisingly large proportion of these peatlands are not even shown on global maps. And what information is available consists only of rough estimates. In reality, we know next to nothing about their depth, their extent or their carbon stores. The information we think we have is therefore subject to a great deal of uncertainty, and that is precisely what makes field research in this area so exciting.
Drained peatlands do not recover fully. When peat dries out, it becomes compacted, the pores become blocked and the moss decomposes – causing it to lose its function as a water reservoir. Although a rewetted bog creates new habitats and halts emissions, it does not achieve the storage capacity of the original ecosystem. That is why we must protect intact bogs now – only wet bogs fulfil their unique role for the climate and biodiversity.
Even before the expedition, researchers from the Greifswald Moor Centre had selected over 100 sampling sites in the protected areas using satellite imagery and existing maps. The selected sites covered three characteristic peatland landscapes: extensive open raised bogs, forested peatlands and ‘muskeg’ – a mosaic of peatland areas interspersed with small bodies of water, exposed rock and islands of trees. The aim was to determine the total carbon content of the bogs in the protected areas along British Columbia’s Pacific coast by taking soil samples and measuring aboveground biomass.
Core samples were taken at each of these sites. These core samples make it possible to determine the thickness and quality of the peat layer. At the same time, the above-ground vegetation, comprising trees and shrubs, was surveyed to quantify the stored above-ground biomass. Taken together, the data can be extrapolated to the total area, providing a more accurate picture of how much carbon is actually sequestered in the peatlands, both above and below ground.
The findings confirm what the researchers had already suspected: the peatlands on Porcher Island are among the region’s most substantial carbon sinks. Peat layers in some places over 4 metres thick mean that enormous quantities of CO2 have been sequestered here over 4,000 years.
Particularly fascinating is the comparison with the old-growth forests of British Columbia. Whilst these have hitherto been known primarily for their gigantic carbon stores in above-ground biomass – that is, in the giant trees – initial analyses suggest that up to three times as much carbon is stored in the underground biomass of the moors. This brings the bogs into the spotlight alongside the rainforests as Canada’s key ‘climate reservoirs’.
If you handle the preserved mosses, pieces of wood or pine needles from the lower end of the drill core, you are touching small, unassuming record-holders. However small it may be, the wood is ten times as old as any living giant tree to be found on the entire island.
These findings represent an important step towards systematically assessing the climate protection value of peatlands. Not only do they provide the scientific basis for international publications, but they also fill in some of the gaps on the map. At the same time, they give rise to concrete recommendations for action, which are particularly crucial in Canada, because – unlike in Germany, where awareness of the importance of peatlands is growing – peatlands in Canada continue to be destroyed on a large scale.
Furthermore, the peatlands on Porcher Island are extremely valuable habitats: they are home to specialised plants such as sundew, bog myrtle and the cloud-like cloudberry, as well as a wide variety of amphibians and insects that can only survive in these wet, nutrient-poor habitats. These, in turn, form the basis for many birds that depend on this area as a breeding ground or stopover site. Bats, too, need these intact moors, as they feed on the countless insects found only there.
Whilst the moors on Porcher Island remain largely untouched, the situation is quite different in other parts of Canada. In particular, oil sands extraction in the neighbouring province of Alberta has irrevocably destroyed vast areas of moorland. When the peat is extracted, the ‘plug is literally pulled’ from the peatlands: carbon stores dating back thousands of years dry out, the water drains away and, within a very short time, gigantic quantities of CO2, which were previously safely locked away in the peatland, are released.
This is not only an ecological disaster, but also a climate risk on a global scale. Intact peatlands are therefore doubly valuable: they prevent emissions whilst simultaneously safeguarding biodiversity. Destroyed peatlands, on the other hand, reverse their role: from a shield for the climate to hotspots of greenhouse gases.
