Brazilian scientists urge action to protect wetlands

The impact will become apparent within 10 to 20 years, with sharply reduced rainfall in many regions, said Wolfgang Junk of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Biology. In tropical climates, dry seasons will become drier and rainy seasons wetter, he said. “Actions have to be taken now on the local and regional level because the impact will be felt within decades if not years,” Junk said in a telephone interview from Cuiaba, a city in midwestern Brazil where he was among 700 scientists from 28 nations attending a conference on the role of wetlands in climate change.

Though wetlands cover only about 6 percent of the Earth’s surface, they store about 20 percent of the Earth’s carbon. “They store a disproportionally large amount of carbon, equal to about two thirds of what is in the atmosphere already,” said Eugene Turner, a professor at Louisiana State University and a leading expert on the relationship between wetlands and climate change.

That carbon is released into the atmosphere, expediting global warming, as wetlands are destroyed through agricultural drainage, urban development, groundwater pumping, pollution and peat extraction.

Global warming then dries out more wetlands, causing further destruction, Turner said.

The weeklong conference is being held at the edge of Brazil’s Pantanal, a stunning 62,000 square miles (160,000 square kilometers) of wetlands that cover much of two Brazilian states and stretch into Bolivia and Paraguay.

Scientists will conclude the conference by calling on nations to better protect their wetlands, said Paulo Teixeira of the United Nations University and a co-chair of the conference.

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