Nature is pretty amazing at sorting out the mess we make.  And this is certainly true when it comes to one of the biggest problems facing us, climate change. Around a third of all the carbon dioxide we have ever pumped into the atmosphere by burning fossil fuels has been mopped up by the world’s oceans. Carbon sinks, as they are known, come in many shapes and sizes.  If nature wasn’t pretty good at extracting carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and locking it safely away from causing trouble we wouldn’t have all those deeply buried oil, gas and coal reserves that we’ve been busy exploiting at ever increasing scales since the industrial revolution. 

But to help us out of the mess we are creating natural systems need to be healthy, or in the jargon of nature conservation, the ecosystems need to be fully functioning which in everyday language pretty much means they need a full complement of the species that make them up with their communities of plants, animals, bacteria and fungi having enough space in natural habitats to be sustainable and self-renewing.

Shaggy inkcap, by Nick Goodrum



Nearly everyone is aware that forests are one important terrestrial carbon sink – it’s not difficult to appreciate that as trees grow they remove carbon from the atmosphere and lock it away both in the wood above ground and their roots below.  But there are many other equally important carbon sinks including peat forming wetlands, coastal salt marshes, and just offshore sea-grass beds and marine reefs.  Few people realise that the world’s soils hold many times more carbon than the world’s forests and that wherever we have humus forming soils this is not only good for soil fertility but it also a way that nature removes carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and locks it away via working of plants, fungi and bacteria into soil systems. 

You would think that as we now know where nature is best able to extract carbon dioxide from the atmosphere the first thing we would do to help mitigate the climate emergency would be to strictly protect those ecosystems that are working to do this.  In the jargon of nature conservation these are habitats and natural systems that perform the ecosystem service of climate regulation. But what are we doing?  Well it’s not news that globally we are still draining many remaining wetlands, chopping down or burning our tropical forests, reclaiming salt-marshes and mangrove swamps for coastal development and bottom dredging our sea grass beds.  Globally humanity has destroyed around 50% of the world’s forests, and much of the world’s agriculture, rather than working in ways that develop more humus in soils, farms in ways which cause soil erosion and are dependent on chemical fertilisers made using fossil fuels.  When agriculture uses natural organic systems that add fertility by enhancing the soil’s organic content it also helps lock carbon into soils. 

Across the world scientists are warning that the window of opportunity to act on the climate emergency, limit climate warming to under 2 degrees Celcius and stay in a safe zone which doesn’t push climate systems beyond unpredictable and possibly irreversible tipping points, is the next 10, or at most, 20 years.  As a first urgent step we need to protect, and where possible enhance, natural carbon sinks. Let’s help nature to help us.    

Increasingly nature conservation organisations are realising that the biodiversity crisis and climate crisis are utterly intertwined – they both result from exploiting nature and natural resources in ways which are unsustainable.  Nature conservation through restoring forest systems, protecting wetland habitats or creating new ones and taking action to safeguard marine ecosystems such as sea grass beds, is vital, not just to protect wildlife, but also as part of protecting ourselves from devastating climate change. 

NWT Hickling Broad, by Elizabeth Dack

Here in Norfolk the Wildlife Trust has successfully protected many peat forming wetlands across the Norfolk Broads, including Norfolk’s largest Broad and its surrounding wetland at Hickling. NWT has successfully created a new wetland in the Fens, the Wissey Wetland, from previously drained peatlands.  Just a few of many projects which  not only protect wildlife but also protect ecosystems which function as carbon sinks. Indeed the Trust’s current project to buy more land adjacent to the unique pingo wetlands of Thompson Common and create new wetland pools here is yet another example of how a project  to protect wildlife can also be part of natural climate solutions.   

Nature conservation and climate change action go hand in hand.  Both wildlife and people are threatened by climate change but conversely  protecting wildlife and giving nature a helping hand is a vital part of creating natural climate solutions.   
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