New resource for secondary schools: How can soils save the world? by Anna Macphie

Working with The Brilliant Club, Anna Macphie has recently designed a programme of tutorials to introduce Key Stage 4 pupils to the global, regional, and local importance of tropical peatlands. The Brilliant Club is a charity that works with schools across the UK to increase the number of pupils from underrepresented backgrounds progressing to highly-selective … Read more

Peatland pole forests: the most carbon dense ecosystem in Amazonia

Dr Euridice Honorio del Instituto de Investigaciones de la Amazonía Peruana led the recent paper entitled Intensive field sampling increases the known extent of carbon-rich Amazonian peatland pole forests in collaboration with Wildlife Conservation Society, University of Leeds, University of St Andrews, and several other institutions. This paper, published at Environmental Research Letter, will let … Read more

“From steaming swamp to blanket bog” photography exhibition

To coincide with World Peatland’s Day, on Wednesday 2nd June, 2021, three members of the Tropical Wetlands Consortium, Lydia Cole, Katy Roucoux and Althea Davies, launched a new website, which will be showcasing an online exhibition from August onwards. Funded by a British Ecological Society Outreach Grant, they have developed an exhibition of photographs illustrating … Read more

Prof Nina Laurie interviewed for Attalea magazine

Following Nina’s recent award of the RGS-IBG Busk Medal for her contribution to social inclusion, international development, and environmental sustainability through fieldwork and research, Nina was interviewed for Attalea magazine, the outreach journal of the Research Institute of the Peruvian Amazon (IIAP). The interview is posted here in English and in Spanish. Entrevista-Nina-Laurie  Entrevista-Nina-Laurie-English

Peruvian Peatlands – an interview for Attalea magazine

TWC collaborator Manuel Martín Brañas interviewed Katy Roucoux last month on behalf of Attalea magazine, an outreach magazine published by the Research Institute of the Peruvian Amazon (Instituto de Investigaciones de la Amazonía Peruana, IIAP). The interview is out now. You can find the full issue of the magazine Attalea, and just the interview in … Read more

Round the world in eight peatlands

In December 2020, Lydia Cole and Charlotte Wheeler ran a session at the British Ecological Society’s Annual Meeting, all about peatlands. Here is a round-up of that session, written by Lydia. This piece was first published in Peatlands International 1.2021 and is being republished here with kind permission from the International Peatland Society. On 18th … Read more

Is it really renewable, for peat’s sake?

This blog, written by Lydia Cole, is being reposted with permission from the Energy Ethics research group at the University of St Andrews, after being published on The Energy Blog, on 26th November, 2020.  ~ As part of Energy Ethics 2020, I joined three other panellists on Friday 13th November to debate the question: Are renewable energy technologies a … Read more

Hope in the tropical peatlands of the Peruvian Amazon and Congo Basin, by Camille Choquet

Somehow charmed by the Amazonian mosquito-infested swamps during a first internship at the IIAP (Instituto de las Investigaciones de la Amazonía Peruana), I wanted to know more about these amazing ecosystems, a chance that Katy and Ian gave me by supervising my final internship on tropical peatlands at the University of St Andrews. Freshly arrived … Read more

Pollen vs Covid

A welcome reflection on lockdown and the perspective gifted by palynology, penned by Dael Sassoon. Mauritia, Mauritia, Alchornea, Cecropia, Mauritia, Poaceae… and so the list continues until all the 500 pollen grains are safely stored in my excel spreadsheet, one sample after the other. Soon the spreadsheet turns into a precious database reflecting changes in … Read more