Globally, ‘paludiculture,’ swamp cultivation, can help save the world’s disappearing peat swamp forests. According to the Guardian newspaper, poorly managed agricultural drainage and extraction of large areas of peatlands account for nearly 5% of global CO2 emissions, and an immeasurable loss in biodiversity. Professor Hans Joosten of Germany’s Greifswald University estimates that in Southeast Asia, replacing wetland agriculture plantations, like palm oil and acacia, with wet cultivation could cut 500 megatonnes of CO2 emissions, the equivalent of 1-2% of annual global emissions.
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