Peatland and Mangrove Preservation Could Reduce Land-Use Emissions in Southeast Asia by Half, Study Says

Scientists have found that preservation and restoration for peat swamp forests and mangroves could help lower land-use emissions in Southeast Asia by about 54%. Because the region contributes to about one-third of global land-use carbon emissions, the reduction could also have a big impact globally, with a potential 16% reduction in land-use emissions worldwide.

Peatlands and mangroves account for around 5.4% of land area in Southeast Asia, but they have huge carbon sequestration properties, according to the scientists, who published their findings in the journal Nature Communications. As National University of Singapore (NUS) reported, peatlands and mangroves can sequester around 90% of carbon in the soil. The natural peatland and mangrove ecosystems also promote biodiversity.

Further, the scientists noted that Southeast Asia is home to a significant portion of the world’s tropical peatlands and mangroves, with Brunei, Cambodia, Timor Leste, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam accounting for 33% of global mangroves and 39% of global tropical peatlands.

Half of land use carbon emissions in Southeast Asia can be mitigated through peat swamp forest and mangrove conservation and restoration www.nature.com/articles/s41…

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But with land-use changes, these ecosystems are under threat and risk emitting carbon rather than storing it. According to the Environmental Law Alliance Worldwide, some of the biggest threats to mangroves include coastal development and pollution. As the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) reported, peatland threats include drainage, burning, agriculture and mining.

“If we conserved and restored the carbon-dense peatlands and mangroves in Southeast Asia, we could mitigate approximately 770 megatonnes of CO2 equivalent (MtCO2e) annually, or nearly double Malaysia’s national greenhouse gas emissions in 2023,” Massimo Lupascu, senior author of the study and associate professor of geography at NUS, said in a statement.

As Mongabay News reported, restoring the peatlands and mangroves that are currently degraded — which includes around 5.34 million hectares (13.4 million acres) drained peatlands and 2.64 million hectares (6.52 million acres) otherwise degraded peatlands — could reduce emissions by around 94 million metric tons of CO2 equivalent per year alone.

Conservation of remaining peatlands should be a major focus. As NUS reported, it is difficult to recover sequestered carbon once the natural peatlands or mangroves have been disturbed by human activities. While restoration will still be important, conserving the remaining ecosystems is critical to reducing land-use emissions.

“These ecosystems pack a climate mitigation punch far beyond their size, offering one of the most scalable and impactful natural solutions to combat the planet’s climate crisis,” said Sigit Sasmito, first author of the study and a researcher at TropWATER at James Cook University.

In addition to prioritizing peatland and mangrove restoration and conservation, the study authors pointed out that these carbon-sequestering ecosystems could also provide economic value, such as through carbon credits, to outweigh the potential economic benefits of land-use changes.

“Wetland soils may have little agronomic value, as it is generally not well-suited for traditional farming or crop cultivation, but they are unmatched in their ability to store and preserve carbon,” Pierre Taillardat, co-author of the study and a principal investigator at Nanyang Technological University (NTU) Singapore’s Wetland Carbon Lab, said in a statement. “If carbon were valued like other critical commodities, such as being traded on the carbon credits market, it could unlock vast opportunities for conservation and restoration projects. This will enable local communities to lead carbon management efforts with a win-win scenario where livelihoods and sustainable ecosystems thrive together.”

It will be important for countries to act quickly on peatland and mangrove preservation and restoration efforts. The UN Environment Programme (UNEP) recently reported that around 500,000 hectares of peatlands are destroyed each year, with East and Southeast Asia particularly affected. Degraded peatlands contribute to around 4% of all global anthropogenic carbon emissions.