{"id":21647,"date":"2026-02-26T11:58:48","date_gmt":"2026-02-26T06:28:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/?p=21647"},"modified":"2026-02-27T14:01:20","modified_gmt":"2026-02-27T08:31:20","slug":"peatlands","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/peatlands\/","title":{"rendered":"Peatlands"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2><b>Peatlands Latest News<\/b><\/h2>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Researchers found that two lakes namely Mai Ndombe and Tumba in the Democratic Republic of Congo are releasing carbon that has been locked away for thousands of years in surrounding peatlands.<\/span><\/p>\n<h2><b>About Peatlands<\/b><\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Peatlands are <\/span><b>terrestrial wetland ecosystems<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> in which waterlogged conditions <\/span><b>prevent plant material from fully decomposing.<\/b><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Consequently, the <\/span><b>production of organic matter exceeds its decomposition<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, which results in a net accumulation of peat.<\/span>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Peat, formed from <\/span><b>the accumulation of dead plant material,<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> does not decompose in a water-logged state but when it dries, the organisms that break down plant material revive and the carbon seeps back into the atmosphere.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">In <\/span><b>cool climates<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, peatland vegetation is mostly made up of <\/span><b>Sphagnum mosses, sedges and shrubs<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> and are the primary builder of peat,<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">In <\/span><b>warmer climates<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> graminoids and <\/span><b>woody vegetation<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> provide most of the organic matter.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The <\/span><b>swamps and peatlands<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> of the <\/span><b>Congo Basin cover only 0.3%<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> of the earth\u2019s land surface, yet hold <\/span><b>one-third of the carbon stored<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> in its tropical peatlands.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><b>Distribution:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> The majority of the world\u2019s <\/span><b>peatlands occur in boreal and temperate<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> parts of the Northern Hemisphere.<\/span><\/li>\n<li aria-level=\"1\"><b>Types<\/b><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"list-style-type: none;\">\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"2\"><b>Northern and temperate peatlands: Found <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">especially, <\/span><b>Europe, North America and Russia<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> where they have formed under high precipitation-low temperature climatic regimes.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"2\"><b>Tropical peatlands: <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Found in <\/span><b>Southeast Asia, mainland East Asia,<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> the Caribbean, Central America, South America, Africa, parts of Australasia and a few Pacific Islands.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><b>Source: <\/b><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/ddnews.gov.in\/en\/congo-lakes-are-releasing-ancient-carbon-raising-climate-concerns-study-says\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">DD News<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Peatlands are terrestrial wetland ecosystems in which waterlogged conditions prevent plant material from fully decomposing. Read more about Peatlands, Distribution, Types, Latest News.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":90048,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[5733,246,21,350],"class_list":{"0":"post-21647","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-upsc-prelims-current-affairs","8":"tag-peatlands","9":"tag-prelims-current-affairs","10":"tag-prelims-pointers","11":"tag-upsc-prelims-current-afffairs","12":"no-featured-image-padding"},"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21647","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21647"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21647\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":90044,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21647\/revisions\/90044"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/90048"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21647"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21647"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21647"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}