"On the Shetland Islands, where sheep graze on peatlands beneath wind turbines, the race to restore a key carbon sink has begun".

"The sodden, squelchy hills of Scotland's Shetland Islands feel a world away from Dubai's gleaming "future-centric mini-city" where the United Nations' COP28 climate talks are being held.

But the peatlands blanketing more than half of these remote islands, about 100 miles (161 km) north of mainland Scotland, have a critical yet under-appreciated role to play in the drive to prevent catastrophic global warming.

These bogs act as giant carbon sinks, storing more than twice as much planet-heating carbon dioxide (CO2) as all the world's forests combined, locked in by their colourful patchwork of sphagnum mosses and heathers.

As in many other parts of the world, however, years of drainage for farming and peat harvesting have stripped large swathes of Shetland's bogs bare - many scarred as if gashed by a giant knife and left exposed to the elements."

Jack Graham reports for Thomson Reuters Foundation December 5, 2023. [2]