Destruction of Wetlands Could Unleash 'Carbon Bomb'. By Deborah Zabarenko, Reuters, July 21, 2008. "The world's wetlands, threatened by development, dehydration and climate change, could release a planet-warming 'carbon bomb' if they are destroyed... scientists said on Sunday. Wetlands contain 771 billion tons of greenhouse gases, one-fifth of all the carbon on Earth and about the same amount of carbon as is now in the atmosphere, the scientists said before [the INTECOL International Wetlands Conference,] an international conference [in Cuiaba, Brazil] linking wetlands and global warming. If all the wetlands on the planet released the carbon they hold, it would contribute powerfully to the climate-warming greenhouse effect, said Paulo Teixeira, coordinator of the Pantanal Regional Environment Program in Brazil. 'We could call it the carbon bomb,' [he] said... 'It's a very tricky situation.' Some 700 scientists from 28 nations are meeting... [at the conference, which is set] at the edge of Brazil's vast Pantanal wetland... Wetlands are not just swamps: they also include marshes, peat bogs, river deltas, mangroves, tundra, lagoons and river flood plains. Together they account for 6% of Earth's land surface and store 20% of its carbon. They also produce 25% of the world's food, purify water, recharge aquifers and act as buffers against violent coastal storms."
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