Centuries of drainage have turned many of Europe’s wetlands from carbon stores into sources of greenhouse gas emissions. Now EU-funded researchers are exploring how restoring wetlands could benefit both climate and local economies. Wetlands are surprisingly effective at locking away carbon. Marshes, floodplains and peatlands together cover less than a tenth of the Earth’s surface, yet peatlands alone hold around a third of all the carbon stored in soil worldwide. In waterlogged wetland soils, dead plant material decomposes very slowly, allowing large amounts of carbon to accumulate over thousands of years. When wetlands are drained, oxygen enters the soil, accelerating decomposition and releasing the stored carbon into the atmosphere as greenhouse gases. Across Europe, large expanses of wetlands have been drained over time for agriculture, forestry, peat extraction and development. In Finland and Latvia, for example, many peatlands were converted for commercial forestry and peat production, while in central Europe peatlands were often reclaimed for farming. “It’s an enormous land use change,” said Liisa Ukonmaanaho, a senior researcher at Natural Resources Institute Finland (Luke). Ukonmaanaho …