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Huvenhoopsmoor in Lower Saxony
Photo: Robert B. Fishman / picture alliance / dpa
It lies there
like an enchanted fairytale landscape.
Ponds alternate with islands of nail bushes and peat moss.
Marsh calla and king fern stand in the water.
A moor frog hops through the grass.
But Frederik Schawaller is not satisfied with the moor idyll.
"There is usually water here," says the biologist from the Hamburg Nature Conservation Union, pointing to pits in the ground where peat was once cut.
The nature reserve Moorgürtel in the south-west of Hamburg is "clearly too dry".
The ecosystem is threatened with damage.
And not only that: drought in moors is also fatal for the climate.
The "peat body" under Schawaller's feet is up to eight meters thick, a concentrated organic matter that has been trapped underground for thousands of years.
If the water level falls, the peat comes into contact with air and oxidizes.
Then carbon dioxide escapes.
Dry bog is a climate killer.
"Every drained bog contributes to global warming," says Hermann Lotze-Campen from the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research.
This climate-damaging effect is easily underestimated: "The international climate targets can only be achieved if peatlands are regenerated and protected worldwide."
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