News

By Nancy Goucher

Can-Peat: Peatlands as nature-based climate solutions got down to work at its first annual workshop held in Waterloo, ON at the end of January 2023. The meeting brought together 36 researchers, NGOs, industry, government and Indigenous communities from across Canada to discuss plans for meeting their ambitious goals which include creating a Canadian peatland network, developing a database to house peatland carbon data, advancing peatland carbon models, and identifying mechanisms for implementing peatland nature-based solutions.

The Can-Peat newsletter will be published four times a year. Articles will focus on research updates, upcoming events, and research team profiles.

We also hope to include features and updates from our partners, collaborators, and the broader Canadian peatland community so if you have an idea for article or have a great photo, please get in touch at canpeat@uwaterloo.ca!

The Can-Peat network’s December 2025 sharing session offered a lively glimpse into the realities of peatland research and restoration, creating a space where seasoned researchers, students, and practitioners could swap stories from the field, compare methods, and celebrate both successes and challenges. Rather than formal presentations, the session leaned into the joy of shared experience, highlighting how field seasons shape research questions, collaborations, and community connections. 

A new publication by peatland colleagues from around the world emphasises Canada’s policy problem as part of a global policy problem, highlighting gaps and solutions for both global and national policies for peatlands. This review and update of the 2022 GPA policy chapters identifies three global policy challenges for peatlands that apply to Canada; (1) contradictory and fragmented policy frameworks, (2) insufficient and poorly structured finance for restoration, and (3) limited inclusion of communities and rights holders.

Can-Peat's trading card series are a fun way to learn more about our peatlands. Visit beautiful and unique research sites in our series 1. Read about different field measurements in series 2. Finally, stay tuned for series 3 to learn about peatland plants. 

Peatlands are globally significant carbon stores, yet vegetation phenology at fine spatial scales remains an understudied component of peatland functioning. This limits our understanding of how these ecosystems operate and respond to environmental change.

The PeatPic Project is an international effort designed to address this gap by collecting and analysing plot-scale digital photographs from peatlands across multiple climate zones. 

Recent Can-Peat Publication: Permafrost thaw profoundly changes landscapes in the Arctic-boreal region, affecting ecosystem composition, structure, function and services and their hydrological controls. The water balance provides insights into water movement and distribution within a specific area and thus helps understand how different components of the hydrological cycle interact with each other. However, the water balances of small- (<101 km2) and meso-scale basins (101–103 km2) in thawing landscapes remain poorly understood.

Recent Can-Peat publication: Boreal peatlands across northwestern Canada with permafrost have accumulated vast amounts of carbon (C) over millennia despite regularly burning in natural wildfires. Ongoing climate change increases fire frequency and intensifies fire severity, possibly transforming the ecosystems of this vast region into long-term future C sources. Losses of C occur during wildfire but also in the years post-fire due to reduced uptake of the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide (CO2) by vegetation and through decomposition of exposed drier peat on the surface.

Have you ever sat in a team meeting, conference room, or workshop, only to find yourself mute because you felt completely lost?

You are not alone. Many of us have felt that wave of discomfort, frustration, or even isolation when we cannot fully follow a discussion.