Using biodiversity to support climate resilient livelihoods in intact tropical peatlands

Tropical peatlands support unique biodiversity, store large carbon stocks, and sustain local livelihoods, yet they are increasingly threatened by climate change and human activities. In Southeast Asia, large-scale drainage and conversion to oil palm and forestry plantations have caused widespread peatland degradation. By contrast, peatlands in the Amazon and Congo basins remain largely intact but face growing pressures from commercial agriculture and infrastructure development. A key challenge is how to prevent these peatlands from following the same degradation trajectory observed in Southeast Asia.

Here, we present a project funded by the Global Centre for Biodiversity on Climate (GCBC) that integrates scientific and local knowledge to inform sustainable, climate-resilient peatland management. Our research spans 24 sites with permanent forest plots across Peru, the Republic of Congo, and the Democratic Republic of Congo. We combine multiple datasets to advance understanding of (1) peatland plant biodiversity through new botanical collections, (2) hydrological variation using newly installed water-table monitoring dataloggers, and (3) human uses of peatland species derived from semi-structured interviews.

We present preliminary results from work package (1), focusing on floristic diversity and the conservation status of vascular peatland plants assessed using the IUCN Red List. Peatlands in Peru and the Republic of Congo exhibited relatively low species richness compared to other tropical ecosystem types. Palm swamps were strongly dominated by Calamoideae palms, notably Mauritia flexuosa in Peru and Raphia laurentii in the Republic of Congo. Early successional swamp stages were dominated by other Calamoideae species, whereas pole and hardwood forests showed greater tree dominance, including Pachira nitida (Malvaceae), Hevea guianensis (Euphorbiaceae), and Platycarpum loretensis (Rubiaceae) in Peru, and Coelocaryon preussii (Myristicaceae), Cryptosepalum congolanum, Cynometra sessiliflora (Leguminosae), and Symphonia globulifera (Clusiaceae) in the Republic of Congo.

Of the 395 species assessed, 96.7% were classified as Least Concern and only 3.3% as threatened. Contrary to expectations, peatlands did not hold a high overall proportion of threatened species. However, some threatened taxa—such as Platycarpum loretensis (Endangered)—were locally abundant, accounting for 9–21% of stems in pole forest plots. These findings suggest that tropical peatlands have low species diversity, but they can function as important refugia for threatened tropical plant species, highlighting their conservation value beyond carbon storage.

 

* Camille Choquet¹, Xander van der Burgt¹, Dennis del Castillo², Gabriel Hidalgo², Siria  Portalanza², Manuel Martin², Ifo Suspense³, Brice Milongo³, Corneille Ewango⁴, Joseph Kanyama⁴, Tim Baker⁵, Simon Lewis⁵, Ian Lawson⁶, Christopher Schulz⁶ / ¹ Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, ²Intituto de Investigaciones de la Amazonia Peruana,³ Université Marien N’Gouabi, ⁴ Université de Kisangani, ⁵ University of Leeds, ⁶ University of St Andrews