Mongabay: Degradation of peat swamps for oil palm and timber plantations is a substantially larger source of greenhouse gas emissions than previously believed, finds a new study published in the journal Nature.
An international team of researchers tested the water chemistry of channels draining peatlands in Malaysia and Indonesia. They found high levels of "ancient" carbon, indicating that peat swamp degradation releases carbon that has been locked away for thousands of years. Much of the carbon eventually...