FAO joined the Fourth Meeting of the Partners of the Global Peatlands Initiative (GPI4). Co-hosted by the Government of Peru and the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), the meeting was held under the theme Peatlands as livelihoods and the conditions for their conservation and sustainable management.

Stronger monitoring systems are supporting efforts across Indonesia to protect and restore carbon-rich peatland landscapes.

Peatlands – which include bogs, fens, mires, and swamps – are wetland ecosystems with a unique type of soil formed from plant material that has only partially decomposed under waterlogged, oxygen-poor conditions.

Around the Amazonian city of Iquitos — the most populated city in the Peruvian Amazon — lie some of the largest and best-preserved tropical peatlands on the planet. 

FAO and national experts from the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and the Republic of the Congo recently concluded two technical workshops on peatland monitoring.

A collaboration of the BRGM, FAO and the key Indonesian institutions working on monitoring have developed an integrated system to monitor soil moisture, a key variable that helps with understanding and unprotecting Indonesia’s peatlands.

Rome/Jakarta - Peatlands cover only 3 percent of the world's surface yet contain as much carbon as all of its vegetation, dramatically underscoring their pivotal role in global climate regulation.

Sharm El Sheikh, Egypt - Humanity still has an opportunity to turn the tide on climate change by ensuring that all peatlands are wet by 2050, according to a new report released by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO).

FAO has launched its first-ever peatlands field project in the Congo Basin, supporting climate action and sustainable livelihoods in the region.