Estonia\u2019s defense ministry and Latvia\u2019s armed forces said that new Baltic Defence Line plans to fortify the three countries\u2019 borders would make use of natural obstacles including bogs, but did not involve peatland restoration.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Yet scientists see plenty of potential, given that peatlands cover 10 percent of the Baltics. And in many cases, the work would be straightforward, said Helm, the Estonian ecologist.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have a lot of wetlands that are drained but still there. If we now restore the water regime \u2014\u00a0we close the ditches that constantly drain them and make them emit carbon \u2014\u00a0then they are relatively easy to return to a more natural state,\u201d she said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Healthy peatlands serve as havens for wildlife: Frogs, snails, dragonflies and specialized plant species thrive in the austere conditions of bogs, while rare birds stop by to nest. They also act as barriers to droughts and wildfires, boosting Europe\u2019s resilience to climate change.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The return of this flora and fauna takes time. But ending drainage not only puts a fast stop to pollution \u2014\u00a0it also instantly renders the terrain impassable.<\/p>\n
As long as the land isn\u2019t completely drained, \u201cit\u2019s one or two years and you have the wetland full of water,\u201d said Kotowski, the Polish ecologist. \u201cRestoration is a difficult process from an ecological point of view, but for water retention, for stopping emissions and for difficulty to cross \u2014\u00a0so for defensive purposes \u2014\u00a0it\u2019s pretty straightforward and fast.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Estonia\u2019s defense ministry and Latvia\u2019s armed forces said that new Baltic Defence Line plans to fortify the three…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":376092,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7654],"tags":[3971,767,768,46332,18108,2311,3928,473,5398,728,1112,2000,299,769,1824,2348,6084,1113,1114,2597,13994,2821,92562,770,856,332,2824,657,771,335,6507],"class_list":{"0":"post-376091","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ukraine","8":"tag-agriculture","9":"tag-baltics","10":"tag-borders","11":"tag-carbon-removal","12":"tag-climate-adaptation","13":"tag-climate-change","14":"tag-conservation","15":"tag-defense","16":"tag-emissions","17":"tag-environment","18":"tag-estonia","19":"tag-eu","20":"tag-europe","21":"tag-finland","22":"tag-germany","23":"tag-history","24":"tag-infrastructure","25":"tag-latvia","26":"tag-lithuania","27":"tag-military","28":"tag-military-strategy","29":"tag-nato","30":"tag-nature-restoration","31":"tag-poland","32":"tag-pollution","33":"tag-russia","34":"tag-tanks","35":"tag-ukraine","36":"tag-war","37":"tag-war-in-ukraine","38":"tag-water"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115097521064256020","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/376091","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=376091"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/376091\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/376092"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=376091"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=376091"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=376091"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}