Episode Summary: In this episode, hosts Leekei, Jenn and Olabanji have a conversation on wetlands, their role in the ecosystem and how to protect them.

Wetlands serve as critical pillars in our natural ecosystems, performing an array of vital functions that range from biodiversity support to water filtration. Notably, they excel in carbon sequestration; for instance, peatlands, a type of wetland, can rival forests in their ability to store carbon. Despite their ecological importance, wetlands are increasingly under threat. As such, safeguarding them becomes not just advisable but imperative for a balanced environment.

 Hosts share their experiences and knowledge about wetlands they have either visited or are knowledgeable about, including:

• Lake Engure in Latvia
• Burns Bog in Canada

Learn about the RAMSAR convention 

For more information on the project and to order your copy of the Carbon Almanac, visit thecarbonalmanac.org

Want to join in the conversation?

Visit thecarbonalmanac.org/podcasts and send us a voice message on this episode or any other climate-related ideas and perspectives.

Don’t Take Our Word For It, Look It Up!

You can find out more on pages 131, 229 and 232 of the Carbon Almanac and on the website you can tap the footnotes link and type in 080, 107 and 251.

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Featuring Carbon Almanac Contributors Leekei Tang, Jenn Swanson and Olabanji Stephen.

Leekei is a fashion business founder, a business coach, an international development expert and podcaster from Paris, France. 

From Langley in British Columbia, Canada, Jenn is a Minister, Coach, Writer and community Connector, helping people help themselves. 

Olabanji is from Lagos Nigeria. He’s a Creative Director and visual designer that helps brands gain clarity, deliver meaningful experiences and build tribes through Design & Strategy. He founded Jorney - a community designed to help people stay productive, accountable, and do their best work

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The CarbonSessions Podcast is produced and edited by Leekei Tang, Steve Heatherington and Rob Slater.

Hi, I'm Christina.

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I'm from Prague.

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Hi, I'm Jen, and I'm from Canada.

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Hi, I'm Ola Bandji, and I'm from Nigeria.

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Hello, I'm Liki, and I live in Paris.

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Hi, I'm Brian, and I'm from New York.

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Welcome to Carbon Sessions, a podcast with

Carbon Conversations for every day, with

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everyone, from everywhere in the world.

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In our conversations, we share ideas.

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perspectives, questions, and things we

can actually do to make a difference.

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So don't be shy and join our carbon

sessions because it's not too late.

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Hi, I'm Olabunji.

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I'm Jen.

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This weekend is the Cultural

Heritage Weekend in France.

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That means that the exceptional places

that are part of the making of the

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French heritage, French culture,

are open to the public or shown in a

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different way or from a different angle.

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And this could be...

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castles or museums or factories

or government buildings.

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But I have decided that for this time,

for this year, because we've been

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talking a lot on the carbon sessions

about connecting with nature, , to

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visit a place that uphold of the natural

cultural heritage in front, which is Bugs.

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I'm going to visit a bug tomorrow, you

know, and that's why I suggested this

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topic for tonight, which is wetlands,

bogs, peatlands, swamps, because they

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are very, very important in climate

change conversation in both in climate

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mitigation and also in adaptation.

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Yeah, because, um, I guess that,

because you all have the carbon

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almanac, you know, by now that.

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, uh, that wetlands play a very crucial

role in climate change, right?

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Yeah.

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I can say that we have a really big peat

bog near us, , called Burns Bog, and

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it's the largest, uh, raised peat bog and

the largest undeveloped urban landmass

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on the West Coast of the Americas.

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Wow.

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Um, once upon a time, it was.

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almost 5, 000 hectares.

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It was, I think, 4, 900 hectares

before it got developed.

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So what's left now is about 3, 500

hectares or 8, 600 acres and it has

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It's, uh, 300 plant and animal species

and 175 bird species and a lot of those

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are endangered, um, endangered species.

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And then it's also part of what's

called the Pacific Flyway, which is

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where, , the migratory birds stop.

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, so it's a pretty cool place.

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We had, uh, a huge fire.

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of the bog.

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Uh, well, it's had a few fires.

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, but the latest one was in, , 2016.

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And so that's a bit scary

because peat will burn for days.

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, but it's a beautiful place to, to walk.

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Uh, and do you know what

happened when pits, uh, burn?

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Um, well, it, it goes

quite far into the air.

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When Pete goes on fire and then it puts

out a lot of ash and it grows quickly.

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It grew to about 190 acres, the fire.

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Wow.

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Um, but they managed to put it

out and, uh, using, you know, air

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tankers and helicopters and stuff.

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, but it's a beautiful place.

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It's a wetland.

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And, um, it's got something called

sphagnum moss in it, which, um,

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holds 30 times its weight in

water, which is kind of cool.

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So there's all sorts of information

when you walk through Bernsbog,

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, about the animals and the birds

and the, uh, the life that's there.

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So it's a cool place.

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Yes.

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Wow.

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, this is great.

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And it's sad to see that the fires are...

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causing a huge destruction on that end.

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I started looking at this, I found

some really interesting facts, part

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of which is pitlands are the largest

natural terrestrial carbon store.

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And so they store more carbon than any

other thing that we can think about modern

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trees and modern whatever intervention

there is and they take just about a

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little bit of about three percent of the

global land surface and so for the size

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of peat lands they sure do a lot of work

to store carbon and then Just like you

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said, Jen, like seeing even that go away

is a huge cause for concern, I think.

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Yeah.

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The thing about the, um, this particular

place that I've been to is , it did

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recover, you know, the fire, um, It's

incredible how these things recover after,

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after things as drastic as a forest fire.

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This, this particular one was,

um, was formed 10, 000 years

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ago at the end of the Ice Age.

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It's pretty neat.

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Wow.

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Yeah, and, uh, , it'll be around

long after we are, I think,

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actually, when I was researching for

this conversation, I found out that

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wetlands covered, I mean, a big part of,

of Europe was covered , with wetlands.

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I don't know about your, uh, about, , the

America or, uh, , Africa, but Europe.

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Big part of Europe was COPD with wetlands,

and I found some data that says that

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some regions cop with like 20 or 30% of

wetlands like, you know, particularly,

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uh, the Netherlands or , the, the

poor river in Italy or the DanUp delta

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in Romania has a lot of wetlands,

but uh, has been destroyed since.

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And that's sad because

we really need wetlands.

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But sorry, was it destroyed

by people developing or why?

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Why?

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Well, because pit, um, I don't know

about pitland, but wetlands in general

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is very good for agriculture because

it has very, very good soil because

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it, it does absorb a lot of carbon.

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So the soil, when you grow,

when you, you transform the

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wetlands into agricultural land.

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, it's very fertile type of soil.

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So there's this.

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There's also urbanization, because,

uh, you know, when you dry the pitland,

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you can build towns and buildings.

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And, um, there's also pit

extraction, because pit extraction

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can be used as fertilizers.

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So that's, that's some of

the reasons that Right.

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, the wetlands have diminished in Europe.

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Do you have bogs and, and that where

you are albani, have you got Um, yeah.

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Um, we have more swamps.

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Around here then?

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Um, yeah, we, we definitely

have more swamps.

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What's the difference

between swamps and barks?

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I guess it's because , different type

of wetlands have different ecosystem

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because they are form different

ways and, uh, different sort of,

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of water and uh, also plants and

then creates different ecosystem.

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That's why I think there

are different terminology.

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Yeah, what do we do to And

this is, this is two sides.

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So one side is the, the effect.

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And the effect is, I think we've talked

a bit about the cost, which would be

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drainage, um, agriculture, burning, mining

for fuel and all the activities that cost

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, the bogs and the wetlands to go away.

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But 1.

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9 gigatons Carbon annually is drained

from the peat lands, which is very

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alarming considering the fact that

that's, that's probably like 5 percent

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give or take of global anthropogenic

greenhouse gas emissions, which

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would be the greenhouse gas emissions

that come from human activity.

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And so it's like every year, 5 percent

of that is lost, you know, and that's

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the effect of all the activities that.

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that are being done.

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So I guess, how do we restore?

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Are there, like, very effective

methods that we can consider

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for restoring the peatlands and

perhaps some solution to, to this?

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Because if the peatlands are,

like we said, about 3 percent

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of the entire landscape, then we

can't afford to let them go away.

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So yeah, I'm just thinking, are

there things that we can do?

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I know prevention for sure is the best

option, but in cases where we, we've lost

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the pitlands and the bogs and the rest

of them, what can we do to get them back?

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Well, actually I visited another

bog this summer in Latvia, and I

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found out that there's a treaty,

there's an that protects pitlands.

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And this treaty is called

the Ramsar Convention.

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Ramsar, R A M S A R Convention.

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And it is an international treaty.

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And it promotes the conservation and

sustainable use of wetlands globally.

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Actually a lot of countries are of

this treaty, , um, there are 170

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countries that have joined., and,

um, and it covers 2, 400 wetlands.

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Then those are called Ramsar,

Ramsar sites, the Ramsar site.

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Yeah.

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And that means that these sites

have an international importance and

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are prioritized for conservation.

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And so that was, that was when

I was in Latvia, this place

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was, , um, part of Natural Park.

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They promote first the awareness of it,

that, the importance of, of the bark, but

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also they also promote the, uh, , the,

the bird washing and, , they conserv some

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of of the natural habitat of the, of

the animals, of the small creatures.

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It's not very well known \ . Apparently,

\ , you've been to bogs and swamps and all

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this kind of places, but you, you have

certainly not heard of Ramsar Treaty.

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And , actually is a

treaty that does exist.

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The bog I was talking about, Burns

Bog, is listed under the, uh, what's

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called Fraser River Delta Ramsar site.

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And as it's a wetland of international

significance, so it, it's part

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of what you're talking about.

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Leaky and it's because of the, um,

the feeding and the roosting for all

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the migratory and wintering fowl, uh,

waterfowl and about a million shorebirds.

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So, plus all the, the endangered

and vulnerable species.

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So it's, it's part of the, uh.

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I don't know if it's a treaty or what it,

uh, what it is, the Ramsar Convention,

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they call it, on wetlands, , and bogs.

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I don't know what Ramsar stands for.

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Does anybody?

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Ramsar, Ramsar is, um, is a city in...

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Oh, I see.

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It's named after the city

of Ramsar in Iran, where the

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convention was signed in 1971.

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There you go.

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I'm learning something.

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That's cool.

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It's cool.

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I thought it was an acronym, but

no, it's the name of a city in Iran.

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Yeah, I thought so too.

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I thought it was an acronym.

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So what can we do?

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I think it goes back to

development, generally speaking.

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So we have to find a way to move

forward without destroying what

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exists, and rather making it better.

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The reason being that a lot of what is

responsible for climate change today,

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Is moving forward, so to say, and so

we can't say humanity should pause or

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not move forward, but we need to find a

way to move forward without destroying

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what exists or what is keeping us or

what is keeping the balance, so to say.

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And I think that's an important

part of, that's an important

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conversation that has to be going

on, not just in the climate space.

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And I, and I hope it is anyway,

but in spaces where inventions,

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development technologies and

things are being developed.

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And so if we consider the benefit of a

technology to humanity, we should also

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consider the benefit of that technology

to the ecosystem at the same time and find

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a way to balance things so that, and so

that we can safely innovate and safely

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progress and safely advance as a race.

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And so I was just thinking about that

before I got lost in a little bit of

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reading about the the strange history

of bogs and that that apparently,

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um, things don't decompose in a bog.

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And so they've found ancient humans

buried in bogs in places like Denmark.

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And So they've found clothing and...

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And mummify, mummify.

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This is gross.

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And that's kind of cool.

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This is gross.

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No, I just found, I looked, I was

looking it up and it said , bog bodies.

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But you know, they're, they're

interesting places because, um,

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they're so different than other places.

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On Earth, you know, it's just its

whole thing, its whole own thing.

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Yeah, for sure.

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That's the whole point of a bug,

because , things don't decompose.

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That's why they keep it for so long.

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Yeah.

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It's fascinating.

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Uh, I encourage people who are

listening to, you know, get

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intrigued and look up more about

bogs and peat and, uh, swamps too.

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And Ramsar as well.

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That's right.

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And Ramsar.

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Yeah.

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Which now we know as a name.

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Let us know if you have a bog near

you and let us know if you visited it

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and what kinds of creatures are in it,

because they'll be different depending

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on where you are in the world, right?

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What animals and creatures, we

have a lot of owls and coyotes and

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birds, um, Olobanji, what would you

have in your swamps, do you think?

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What kind of creatures?

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Yeah, crocodiles for sure.

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I think I've seen those.

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I haven't seen any other one, but I know

about crocodiles because I've seen them.

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Oh!

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Cool.

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Yeah.

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Okay.

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I've seen birds in mine.

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Birds and buffalos.

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Yes.

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Birds in yours.

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Yeah.

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Buffalos?

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Yeah.

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Cool.

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And horses as well.

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So diverse.

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Horses.

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Yeah.

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In Camargue.

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That's great.

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So, so what kind of, uh, bog animals

do you have near you and let us know

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because it'd be so fun to find out.

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Thanks, Leakey.

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Thank you, Leakey.

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Thanks, Jane.

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