Peatlands are lands with a naturally accumulated plant layer on their surface, stored by the high water level. Peatland ecosystems store great amounts of carbon and have therefore become a centre of attention for climate change mitigation. Although not all peat locations are known and mapped, peatlands are estimated to contain 30 per cent of the world’s soil carbon even though they only cover 3 per cent of the Earth’s land area. In addition to storing organic matter, peatlands provide a wide range of ecosystem services.

Over 180 countries have peatlands, including in diverse climatic areas like highlands, drylands, coastal areas, river and lake basins, and in the permafrost. However, the muddy Congolese peatlands are the most recent ones to generate headlines.  

In 2017, The UK-Congolese research team, co-led by Prof Simon Lewis and Dr Greta Dargie, from the University of Leeds and University College London published a study that increased the coverage estimations of the peatlands located on the border between the Republic of the Congo and the Democratic Republic of the Congo to approximately 145 500 square kilometres (roughly the size of Nepal). The discovery made the Cuvette Centrale the most extensive, continuous peatland complex in the tropics. After measuring and estimating peat depth, the research group has predicted that this carbon pool below the swamp forest would be equivalent to approximately 20 years of greenhouse gas emissions from the United States of America.

The research highlighted the immense significance of these swamp forests for the stability of our planet’s climate that consequently generated interest and questions about the Cuvette Centrale peatlands. To explore the inquiries, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) together with the Global Landscapes Forum (GLF) organised a Digital Summit “Peatlands: A landscape to discover" on 4 October 2018. The Summit’s experts presented and responded to participants’ questions such as “What are peatlands?”,  “What kind of peatlands can be found in the Congo Basin?”, “What threats are peatlands facing and how can they be reduced?” and others. The summit was held in French and gathered more than 65 participants from around the world, half of them from French-speaking African countries. The session also gave an opportunity to promote the importance of this often-overlooked ecosystems.

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