News

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.

Culture doesn't vanish—it sleeps until stirred again. This idea lies at the heart of Samantha Terry’s research on Anishinaabeg moss bags. Environment undergrad student Samantha Terry focused her final research project on supporting Indigenous families in reclaiming their relationships with Anishinaabeg parenting practices and reconnecting with peatlands.

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.

Teaser blurb: The PeatRestore project aims to bring together peatland professionals from academic, government, and NGO spaces to collaborate on products that catalyze peatland restoration by co-developing practical and timely tools and guidance.

Canadian peatlands are one of Earth’s most important natural carbon sinks, covering more than 12% of Canada's land area and containing an estimated ~25% of the world's peatland carbon reservoir (Hugelius et al., 2020). These ecosystems are particularly dominant in the Hudson Bay Lowlands but also span large swaths of the arctic, sub-arctic, boreal plains and maritime Canada.

Human activities, like resource extraction, inevitably overlap with peatland areas. While only an estimated 2% of Canadian peatlands have been disturbed to date, ongoing human development will continue to impact new areas. These industrial activities disrupt the natural ability of peatlands to sequester atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO₂) and store it as soil carbon. Depending on the disturbance type and how it changes the normal conditions present in that peatland, impacted areas may also release previously stored soil carbon as CO₂ or methane (CH₄). These changes to the usual greenhouse gas (GHG) exchange have significant global implications for climate regulation, so ecological restoration or reclamation is necessary for disturbed areas to regain their normal GHG functions.