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Though Canada is often known as a land of lakes, it is also a country of wetlands. Stretching like a necklace of emeralds, sapphires and rubies across the Canadian landscape, wetlands cover of the Canadian land mass, accounting for almost twice as much area as lakes.

Canada is , yet they remain like hidden treasures to which most Canadians rarely give a second thought.

The importance of wetlands to a sustainable future has been recognized internationally. Signed in 1971 in the Iranian city of Ramsar, —often called the Ramsar Convention—supports international collaboration and national action for the conservation of wetlands.

This week, delegations from contracting parties to the convention, including Canada, have come together in Victoria Falls, Zimbabwe, for the .

Despite decades of efforts, wetlands continue to be under threat around the world. Delegates will work this week to chart a path forward that further elevates wetlands in the global consciousness, highlighting the need to protect these ecosystems and meet international goals to safeguard biodiversity and slow climate warming.

Canada currently has . Yet many of .

Canada's wetlands

The term "wetland" usually conjures an image of a shallow pond bordered by cattails. In fact, , all of which provide valuable services. These reedy marshes provide critically important habitat and water storage, particularly in the Prairies, southern Ontario and Québec.

The vast majority of Canada's wetlands are made up of swamps, fens and bogs, most of which also hold deep deposits of organic soils called peat. Bogs and fens can resemble vast mossy carpets. But they can also look a lot like forests, hiding their soggy soils beneath a canopy of trees.

This wetland diversity contributes to their value. At the interface of terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems, .

They are home to weird and wonderful species, including carnivorous plants , pitcher plants and bladderworts. And if you're hungry, peatlands are a great place for berry picking.

Interwoven in our boreal landscape, wetlands also support iconic Canadian species like beavers, moose and woodland caribou and are key habitats for waterfowl and other migratory birds.

Preserving wetlands is also a . Storm water can fill up pore spaces in mossy peat soils, or spread out across the flat expanse of swamps and marshes, reducing peak flows and helping to protect downstream infrastructure. As the water slows, water quality can also be improved. Sediments have time to settle, while plants and microbes can remove excess nutrients.

Carbon storage

In recent decades, wetlands have gained international attention for their role in carbon storage. Waterlogged sediment and soil lead to slow rates of decomposition. When plant litter falls in a wetland, it builds up over time, creating a bank of carbon that can be stored for millennia.

Peatlands are particularly good at accumulating carbon, as they are home to plants that inherently decompose slowly. Because of this, . Keeping this carbon stored in wetland soils, and out of the atmosphere, is important to climate change mitigation.

Yet, the buildup of carbon in wetlands is slow. Many of these ecosystems have been adding to this carbon bank since the last ice age; digging through meters of peat is like traveling back through time, with the deposits at the bottom often thousands of years old.

This means that the within human lifetimes. Once lost, it will be many generations before the full value of this treasure can be returned.

The economic value of the water-filtering and carbon storage that Canadian wetlands provide has been estimated at . It's clear that healthy wetlands contribute to our society's well-being.

But just as important, they are an integral component of the Canadian landscape. Wetlands are interwoven with our forests, fields, lakes and now even our cities. They link us to the land and water. They are places of wonder and spiritual connection.

Impact of climate change

Despite their value, wetlands in Canada face many threats. In southern regions of Canada, to drainage for agriculture and urban development. Further north, .

However, climate change and resource development are already exacerbating wetland disturbance and loss. Warming temperatures have contributed to larger and more severe wildfires that .

Thawing permafrost is and how they function. Warming also allows for the northward expansion of agriculture with the potential for the loss of even more wetland area to drainage.

Natural resource extraction further contributes to wetland disturbance, often with unexpected consequences. Geologic exploration used to map oil and gas reserves has left a network of over one million kilometers of linear forest clearing across the boreal forest, much of which crosses peatlands.

This has contributed to and led to from these ecosystems.

Mining often involves regional drainage or excavation of peatlands, resulting in the loss of their services. The recent push to fast-track production of critical minerals in Canada is .

Wetland restoration research is ongoing, with some promising results. However, given the long time scale of wetland development, .

As stewards of a quarter of the world's wetland treasures, policymakers and everyday Canadians must ensure that wetlands are safeguarded and preserved for a prosperous future.

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