An urgent call-to-action that brings together public and private stakeholders around a shared vision to upscale and accelerate peatland conservation, restoration, and sustainable management worldwide through investments and actions.

The Global Peatland Hotspot Atlas: The State of the World's Peatlands in Maps evaluates the current status of peatlands worldwide and highlights the threats they face from urbanization, industrialization, land use changes, and climate change. By compiling a series of maps that analyze the global distribution of peatlands in relation to geographic data on these threats, the Atlas offers a comprehensive overview of vulnerable areas.

Action is urgently needed to halt the destruction of peatlands and to restore degraded peatlands, so as to prevent and reduce greenhouse-gas emissions and protect wildlife habitats, but such action can only be taken when decision-makers have sufficient sound evidence on which to base their decisions.

Peatlands are unique and rare ecosystems that, despite only covering around 3-4% of the planet’s land surface, they contain up to one-third of the world’s soil carbon, which is twice the amount of carbon as found in the world’s forests.