JANUARY 2022
Wildfire threatens the largest peatlands conservation effort in Patagonia.
The fire was declared extinct in early April however the danger prevails. Consider donating to the conservation efforts of WCS-Chile.
A forest fire that broke out in Tierra del Fuego on the 25th of January is directly threatening Karukinka Natural Park, administered by WCS Chile. This situation puts at risk valuable ecosystems that have for thousands of years been accumulating carbon, which could now be released into the atmosphere. This scenario would have repercussions not only for Chile–which has committed internationally to decreasing its emissions to reach a maximum of 95 million tons of greenhouse emissions by 2030–but also globally, gravely affecting climate change.
Despite a significant rollout of local forces and the goodwill of regional authorities, the isolated location of the region, complex ecological systems of the island, and lack of precipitation due to a severe and prolonged drought have rapidly driven the fire out of control. It has destroyed over 1,250 hectares (February 3rd) of native forest and peatlands according to CONAF (National Forest Corporation of Chile).
Karukinka Natural Park, part of ancestral Selk’nam territory, is home to approximately 130,000 hectares of primary native forest (the most austral and best-conserved at this latitude on the planet) and over 80,000 hectares of peatlands (80% of the peatlands on the Province). These ecosystems are home to Patagonian animals and birds like the guanaco, the Andean fox, the Magellanic woodpecker and the cachaña, the most austral parakeet in the world, all of whose livelihoods are today threatened by the advancing flames.
Alongside the overwhelming ecological richness of this remote and southmost park, which is four times the size of Santiago and roughly the size of Yosemite or the state of Rhode Island, WCS data shows that its forests and peatlands store over 418 million tons of CO2. This means that they have the potential to release the equivalent of 3 years’ worth of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, according to the data obtained from the GEI (Chilean Greenhouse Gas Emissions Report 1990-2018).
Why this is critical
Burning peatlands and forest (courtesy WCS-Chile)
Peatlands are a type of wetland of great value that contains and accumulates organic material in a state of semi-decomposition (peat), while also regulating the hydrological cycle that sustain forests. In this way, they conserve enormous reservoirs of freshwater that functions like a natural filter, reducing the transport of sediments to underground water sources. Peatlands are most efficient terrestrial carbon sink.
According to studies by Dr. Jorge Hoyos-Santillán and Dr. Armando Sepúlveda-Jauregui, researchers at the Environment Biogeochemistry Laboratory at the Universidad de Magallanes and the CR2, due to the lowering of the water table during summer months the level of water of the peatlands is below the surface. This leaves 1 to 2 meters of combustible organic matter at the surface level. When the fire reaches these wetlands, the destruction of even just one meter of peat will liberate up to 280 tons of carbon per affected hectare. This is equivalent to double the reservoir of carbon sequestered by a hectare of native Lenga forest. Nevertheless, if the fire penetrates deeper, the emissions will increase considerably, potentially reaching up to 623 tons per hectare.
Alongside the community of conservation ecologists of Chile, Turba Tol calls for the materialization of all the possible human effort, technical and financial, to combat fires and to focalize it in Tierra del Fuego with the outlook of extinguishing this threat. Once the emergency has passed, Turba Tol–in collaboration with numerous national and international partners including the WCS-Chile–will work towards the restoration of the damaged ecosystems and to establish an effective program of fire prevention so that we will never again have to face a disaster of this magnitude again on the island.
